What Does Your Resume Say About You?

A well written and well laid out resume is an excellent tool to use to catch hiring managers and human resource recruiters’ attention.  In a nutshell, a good resume can cause you to stand out in the crowd.  Some professionals choose to pay professional resume writing services to compile their resume for them.  Writers who create resumes not only know what hiring managers and recruiters are looking for, they also know how to incorporate keywords into the resume so that the resume rises to the top of the list during a keyword search. 

Professional Writing Service Create Effective Resumes

Yet, not everyone chooses to hire a professional resume writing service to create their resume for them.  After all, no one knows your experiences, passions, likes and dislikes as well as you do.  You know your individual and family financial needs.  You know where you and your family prefer to live or relocate to. 

Still there are major components that all effective resumes (regardless of who creates the resume) must include.  The components are: 

• List of accomplishments that you made during your last or current job (simply change your responsibilities to accomplishments to create this component)
• Job title (search job sites and align your job title with titles companies use that match your skill set when they post job openings)
• Statistics that show how your accomplishments impacts a company’s bottom line (for example, you could highlight that you came in 25% under budget on a Oracle project you rolled out across a technological platform)
• Training you received that is applicable to the job you are applying for
• Why hiring you is good for the company you are seeking to be employed at
• Include language or lingo that is commonly used in the industry that you are seeking work in

Highlighting Skills Across Industries or Jobs

If you have skill sets that cross industries or jobs, consider creating two or more resumes.  For example, a new reporter who has experience teaching journalism at a community college might want to create one resume that focuses on their postsecondary teaching experience and another resume that focuses on their experience as a news reporter. 

The more evenly matched the accomplishments listed on your resume are to the responsibilities of the job you are applying for, the greater you increase your chances of being contacted to come in for an interview.  For example, a job that requires strong leadership skills would call for a resume to focus on times when you made independent decisions that impacted the bottom line. 

Prepare to Provide Employers Resume References

Have a list of three to five references (non-relatives) ready should you be asked for them.  Make sure that all of your references include people who did not supervise you as well.  Some companies do not accept supervisors as references.

Avoid including salary requests in your resume.  Your first objective is to get your resume to stand out in a crowd, not to discuss salary and wages.  Make sure your resume accurately represents you and lets hiring managers and human resource professionals know that you are the missing key they are looking for in order to take a department or division forward.

Get into Spiral online at:  https://www.ebookit.com/books/0000000841/Spiral.html

Check out Long Walk Up online at:  https://www.ebookit.com/books/0000000531/Long-Walk-Up.html

Sources:

http://www.careerrocketeer.com/2010/05/what-does-your-resume-say-about-you.html

http://www.jobscity.net/resources/candidates/resumes/resume_statistics.html