Your resume is the first impression you give to your potential employers, this is why you have to showcase your best self. It’s important to craft your CV in a way that makes you stand out from the competition.
Writing a resume is a challenge for many jobseekers, they struggle to craft an engaging career story that will make any hiring team want to interview them. If you find yourself in such a situation, then this article is for you. Here are 10 tips to make your resume stand out.
1. Craft Your Resume According To The Job You Want
Having a personalised approach is always going to make you stand out from others in life. The same applies when writing a resume. You want to make the reader feel like you’re the perfect fit for the job. Carefully read the job description and make sure you word your CV in a way that addresses all the pain points.
You may be tempted to include your entire work history, but it’s a much better option to focus more on what the employer wants to know, so your resume looks relevant to what they are looking for.
2. Start With A Strong Career Summary Statement
A short compelling career summary statement can grab the recruiter’s attention right from the start. This paragraph briefly describes your career goals while encouraging the recruiter to keep reading. It highlights all your relevant skills at the top of your CV and demonstrates why you should be considered as a viable candidate.
In life, starting anything with your best foot forward is a good approach, and the same applies to writing a resume.
3. Use A Neat And Professional Design
Your prospective employer is likely to read many resumes when looking for the ideal candidate to fill the job vacancy. This is why you must make their jobs easier by organising your CV in a neat and professional manner.
Make sure that you’re consistent in headings, fonts, bullet points, and appropriate font sizes to enhance readability. This makes it much easier to assess your suitability for the job in question. Remember, to stand out, you need to present yourself in a positive and memorable light.
4. Focus on Achievements, Not Responsibilities
Many resume writers make this mistake. They list their everyday responsibilities in their CVs. Most recruiters do not prefer to look at what your tasks were, they want to know how you impacted your former role through your achievements.
Outline your wins by using specific numbers and data to highlight your accomplishments and the impact you made in previous roles. For example, instead of writing “I conducted market research to identify customer preferences and trends”, write “I Implemented a new customer retention strategy that increased customer loyalty by 20% within six months”.
5. Be Concise And Direct
Your resume is likely to be one of many that recruiters will read. This is why it’s important to use shorter sentences and paragraphs to make it easy for them to assess you. Avoid using multiple commas in your statements, as it’s an indication that you’re over-explaining; keep it short and simple.
Remember, use bullet points and short sentences to convey information efficiently. Stick to relevant details and avoid including unnecessary information.
6. Highlight How Great You Are
Show off any additional certifications, courses, or workshops that demonstrate your commitment to continuous learning and professional development. This is to show your drive to improve yourself. Every employer wants someone willing to learn, improve, and produce better results for the growth of the company.
Back up your education certificates with experience. If you’ve spent time working in the industry in question, don’t hesitate to include all relevant experiences. Don’t forget to include your soft skills to come across as a team player.
7. Keep Updating Your Resume
As time passes, certain skills are no longer as relevant as they once were. In the IT field, for example, skills change fast. You’ll need to keep learning and updating your CV with the new skills you’ve acquired.
Having outdated skills in your CV won’t make you stand out from the competition, and this is why you must consistently update to match the current trends.
8. Navigate Through Unemployment Gaps
It’s understandable if you have periods in time when you were unemployed. Instead of falsifying your start and end dates, creatively explain those gaps to make you shine even more.
You can discuss how you spent the time away on personal development to:
- Upgrade your skills to explore a new career path.
- Attend to personal health issues.
- Attend to personal family matters.
- Sabbatical reasons
- Volunteering reasons
These are good options to use for filling in those unemployment gaps on your resume.
9. Incorporate Relevant Keywords
This tip is a recent discovery that is becoming more popular each day as a result of companies using Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) to screen resumes. Due to the hundreds of resumes recruiting teams are faced with, some use AI to screen CVs for keywords they’re looking for.
Keywords are words or phrases that employers use to search for candidates. They use these keywords to narrow down their search. To stand out, you must identify relevant keywords for the job and use them strategically in your resume.
10. Proofread Your Resume Carefully
Having an error-free resume is important if you want to impress your potential employers. This demonstrates that you take yourself seriously and deserve an interview. Spelling and grammatical errors can instantly diminish the impact of your resume. This is why you have to proofread your resume carefully or ask someone else to review it for you.
Also, look out for inconsistent formatting and sentences that you could write more simply. After you’re done with this, you are free to submit your resume.