
Crafting the modern-day resume can be daunting. In fact, you may not be aware of how your resume is missing the mark and consequently you suffer from job search “black-hole-itis”. You know the definition: responding to job postings with your resume and NEVER hearing back, as though your resume got sucked up into the black hole of cyberspace.
With the following tips, you can improve your resume dramatically. Remember, your resume is a self-marketing document. It must meet the needs of the reader, who is your target audience. Whether that target audience is a recruiter or a company’s HR person or department manager or someone with whom you are networking, these do’s and don’ts will apply. So, when writing your resume, be sure to be:
1. Focused – Don’t be open to all possibilities. This screams that you have not got a clue about the kind of job you want. You are on a “fishing expedition” and employers will recognize it in a heartbeat. Identify and communicate your target job function (job titles) and industries of choice. Include a job posting’s actual job title as the Career Target headline in your resume.
2. Relevant – Don’t hide the important stuff. After you have determined your focus, evaluate all of your experiences, education, training, and skills for the most relevant material regarding that job target. Highlight that critical information on the first page, and preferably on the top half of the first page. With 10-20 seconds to scan your resume, make it easy for the reader to find your “best” stuff.
3. Accomplished – Don’t be a “seat warmer”. Only listing job duties and responsibilities on your resume may lead the reader to believe that you actually never accomplished anything and simply went through the motions at work. A job duty is something you were supposed to do as part of your job description. How well you performed that job duty is anybody’s guess UNLESS you quantify the results of those job duties to showcase your successes.
4. Clear – Don’t confuse or overwhelm with wordiness. Get to the point. When you throw a bunch of ambiguous words and phrases on your resume, with lots of industry acronyms and jargon and convoluted sentences that seem to be connected to the thread of thought in your bullet point or paragraph, but end up losing the reader because you have committed “extreme wordiness” with a bullet point or paragraph that goes on for 6 or more lines, you have not really impressed anyone and have succeeded in confusing them and overwhelming them with excessive and unnecessary verbiage (just like this sentence!)
5. Compelling – Don’t be wishy-washy. Who wants to hire a plain-vanilla employee who may show up for work, with luck every workday, but is essentially invisible and non-contributing? This will be the conclusion if you write a lackluster, insipid resume. Communicate excitement and interest with your choice of resume format and content. Even within conservative industries, your resume does not have to look exactly like every other candidate’s resume!
6. Unique – Don’t be a generic commodity. Uncover your personal brand, memorable strengths and leadership style, and your unique value to differentiate yourself from other similar candidates. Show how you can bring added-value to the job. What skills or qualities would be the icing on the cake for the employer? If you don’t know, ask the opinion of others in the industry.
7. Socially connected – Don’t be a dinosaur. Demonstrate that you are keeping up with current trends in social media by including not only your email address, but also URL links to your LinkedIn Profile or videoResume or blog or YouTube videos or VisualCV or web portfolio, and/or your Twitter name or Skype handle, for example. Be sure that whatever you link to is absolutely professional and makes you stand out in a positive light that employers would appreciate. These indicators of social media awareness will tag you as someone who is interested in learning new skills and knowledge, and applying them in the real-world.
Evaluate your resume today against these 7 Do’s and Don’ts. How does your resume fare? Use these tips to morph your resume, perhaps via an “extreme makeover”, from bland to unbeatable!
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