Here are some suggestions to improve the content and design of your resume.
(1) Pretend you are the recruiter looking at the resumes and making the hiring decision. The number one thing you need to do is to be in the proper mindset. Do not extensively list your entire work history and life history – no one wants or even care to see all of that! List what is relevant to this unique employer. Think to yourself, how should I write this resume so it will be attractive to this specific recruiter on the other end?
(2) Add a branding statement to start your resume off right. It’s a growing practice to delete the objective. Instead, consider a personal branding statement or a Profile section.
(3) Read this guide by the University of Waterloo to improve your bullet points. Go to “Writing effective bullet points”. Try to adopt their idea of Skills+Task+Tool ==> Result. Google what other people wrote for jobs similar to yours. Mimic their resume content.
(4) Quantify your content and always use numbers. Instead of saying “Managed a team of people” or “Processed lots of data forms” or “Highly improved efficiency”, say, “Managed a team of 12 people” or “Processed over 200+ form requests per week” or “Improved effiencecy by 2%”. Do not use vague qualifiers like “lots of”. No one knows what that means! It’s best to ground your information with numbers, even if it’s an estimate.
(5) Add different sections to your resume. Follow the guide from start to finish. It’s very comprehensive and a lot of it is relevant to your resume and can address many overall issues with your resume. Look at how they include different Sections (e.g. Technical Proficiency, Computer Skills, Laboratory Skills, etc.). Also, under Appendix B there are great ideas to put in your profile section. e.g. Customer service skills? Sales? Marketing? Fundraising? Research? Project Management? etc.
(6) Improve your skills section. Remember, this is the very first thing that recruiters will see when reading top-down. In that guide, look at their different ideas for technical and non technical skills (e.g. project management and communication skills is probably better to write than saying you are punctual and enthusiastic.
(7) Keep your formatting consistent. Organization/company, start/end dates, position title, city/state should all be in the same place in your different sections for work experience, volunteer experience, project experience, etc. There is absolutely no reason for poor formatting. Good formatting, especially for a document as important as your resume, speaks so much about you. It reflects how much care you put into constructing your resume and indirectly speaks to how well you can write, prepare reports, etc.
MAKE YOUR RESUME RELEVANT BY CONSTRUCTING STRONG BULLET POINTS
(8) Avoid saying “gained this skill.” Replace it with “demonstrated this skill.”
e.g. “Gained customer service skills” should be replaced with “Demonstrated customer service skills” You say in some bullet points that “you learned bla blah blah” or “you acquired a skillset”. This is a meh bullet point. It would be better if you applied knowledge, as opposed to gaining it. e.g. Used knowledge of xyz to do xyz which resulted in xyz.
(9) Don’t just list duties. Demonstrate your achievements. How did you improve the company or event or job, even if it was by a little? Did you make things more efficient? Did you get lot of sales or clients? Did you suggest some new ideas that helped out even for a little bit? Or how about making a report that really helped the team understand what was going on?
(10) All bullet points should start with a past tense verb / “action” verb. Do not be inconsistent with this. Do not start off a sentence with a noun or “Responsible for…” In the guide under Appendix A, there are lots of Action Verbs for reference.
*********
MAKE YOUR RESUME ATTRACTIVE WITH DESIGN
(11) Here’s an exercise for you. Don’t look at your resume for a few days. Then give it a quick glance. Is it visual appealing? Does it have the right balance of white space? Is it too dense? Is it too sparse? Does the ordering make sense? Can my eyes naturally read downwards and read the flow of information easily? Remember: recruiters and HR look at hundreds of resumes. Literally hundreds. Please make our lives easier. Make your resume easier to understand and somewhat “clean” to read.
(12) Use a newer and cleaner overall design for your resume. Consider designing a fresher template yourself with help from this website or this site can just do it for you
(13) Google other resumes for good design. See how they design their resumes and how it looks overall, and especially pay attention to the header and formatting. This is where you can be creative and stand apart from the crowd! I’m not expecting you to be a graphic designer and over-design… but just do something nice. It’s like when you wear a suit that fits really well and suit that doesn’t. Both are professional and both are fine, but one has a better first impression. Similarly, humans are visual creatures who are impressed by professional looking resumes.
(14) For typography, sans serif font is increasing with popularity over serif font. Also, do not underline; bold things instead.
SOME CLOSING ADVICE
(15) See a campus/community resume critique. They can help you with your job hunt, resume, etc. It’s really worth it to see someone in person and they’re usually free.
(16) Start building your LinkedIn network and display your LinkedIn contact info at the top of your resume. LinkedIn is helpful for many reasons. It helps you stay connected with previous employers, build a better online professional image, and stay connected with recruiters and people who interviewed you. LinkedIn can also showcase all of your lengthy information that won’t fit on your concise resume. If you have to cut things out of your resume, you can still display it on your LinkedIn.
(17) To echo my most important point: Ask yourself, if I was the recruiter for this job in this industry, what would I want to see? This is where googling other resumes come into play.
(18) If you have a particular (or multiple) career paths in mind, then a good exercise for you to do is ask a friend (preferably someone who does not know you well) and ask them what industry of job you are applying for, based on only your resume. Why do this? Well, a truly well-constructed resume should communicate directly and indirectly the career path you are interested based on the nuances on language choice and on the selection and presentation of relevant skills and past experiences. Read your resume and determine if you can gather that sense of direction. If not, this is indicator that you really need to work on your resume, and again, think in the mindset of the recruiter at the other end of the computer screen.
(19) And remember – a good resume is one part of the puzzle. The marriage of well-constructed resume and effective strategic job hunting will land you the interview. Please talk to someone about job hunting strategies.
