Did you know that an average recruiter spends approximately 8 seconds on every resume. Before deciding whether they would like to accept or reject it. Are you sure that your resume is making enough impact in those first 8 seconds? Don’t worry, if it doesn’t then I am sure my tips below would definitely help you get the desired attention from the recruiter.
1. “Simplicity“.
Let’s begin by talking about how your resume looks. Of Course it needs to be presentable which means clear headings, clear sub headings, finite number of bullet points and so on and important thing to note is that your resume should always be one single page. Because that makes it easily readable.
Which brings me to my next point!
2. The font and font sizes.
It goes without saying that fonts are an integral part of the resume and makes it readable or not readable. Make sure you stick with the basic ones like Calibri, Times New Roman or Arial. When it comes to font sizes, we recommend about 20px for the headings, about 14 Px for the subheadings and 10-12 px for your body text.
Let us now talk about the content of your resume.
Your contact details should always be present and that includes your phone number and email address and make sure that your email ID is a professional one and not the ones you used to use in college. Include only relevant work experience. What we mean by this is that every internship or every job that you have been doing does not really have to go to your resume. The ones that are important are the ones that will actually help you land your new job. For eg. If you work in Sales and now you are applying for a software role, Sales doesn’t really have to be in your resume and can be avoided.
3. Optimise and quantify your bullet points.
Make sure that you add just about 4-5 points per job and make sure none of them are over 2 lines each. You also need to try and make sure that all the bullet points are as quantifiable as possible. For eg, if you have helped your previous company in sales, there are 2 ways to go about writing this. First one is saying that you helped the company increase their sales. The second one is precisely saying that you have helped the company increase sales by 15% over 4 months. Obviously the 2nd one sounds a lot better. So try quantifying each of your points. Use effective keywords.
Now after you submitted your resume, there can be 2 ways, you resume will be processed. The first one is an Application tracking system. What the ATS does is, it takes the resume, filters all the keywords and matches it with the job description to see how relevant you are to the job role.
The 2nd way is a recruiter who will be going through your resume manually and trying to find all these keywords that is required for the job description. So either ways, you need to make sure that you mention these keywords from the job description in your resume. Make sure you have all the skills that is mentioned in the JD and include it in your resume as well. So whether it’s an ATS system or its a recruiter, when they find the keywords, they will shortlist you.
4. Reverse chronological order.
What this means is that your current job should be at the top of your resume. Followed by your previous job and so on. While we are on this subject, your education should not come before your experiences. Which means you will first write about all the jobs and internships that you have done in the past. After which you will write about your education qualification.
5. Volunteering experiences and interests.
Most company tend to look favorably at candidates who have served their community in some way or the other. So if you have, do mention that on your resume. Here again do not just say that you have worked for XYZ NGO. You should go in-depth and write about how exactly you have affected your community. When it comes to your interests, go through the job description and try to understand what kind of person a company is looking for.
For eg. IF this is a Sales role, it can be assumed that they are looking for an outgoing person. And so you should mention your interests as things like camping or travelling and things like that which will show you are an outgoing person.
Grammatical errors can absolutely sabotage your chances of landing the job. So you need to proof read as much as you can. You can use tools like “grammarly” to help you in the process. You should also get 2nd opinions from your friends. Make sure that you have not overlooked any of these errors.
So that’s it guys. I hope you are now well-equipped to start making your own resume and start applying to all the jobs that you are looking out for and may you get what you have always wanted.
About Vikrant Rai, a Digital Marketer who currently works with Aasaanjobs, an India based Job portal. A writer by day and a reader at night, and will be quite fascinated with a good fiction book. Also a freelance blogger.
