The Importance of a Good Resume

A resume entails a written summary drafted by a job applicant encompassing past employment and education history, and other important information. Writing a resume is a rigorous process and demands exceptional writing skills. The resume is quite important for a number of reasons that include:

a) It is the first impression to the employer: they play an important role in persuading the employer to consider you as a candidate for the job position on offer. As such, they are extremely important when searching for a job.

b) It acts as a marketing tool:  they play an important role in helping the employer understand how you can contribute to the success of a company/firm. A good resume entails an outline of your background, skills, and education. This is important in highlighting your potential and capabilities.

c) It is important in securing an interview: it helps enhance the employers’ urge to get to know you better. If well written, you have the control over the employer’s view about you.

Features of a Good Resume

Resumes can take different formats and approaches. Nonetheless, there are common features that define a good resume. These features encompass the basic tips for writing a good resume. They include:

a) Openness: this entails the ability to illustrate a mind and personality capable of changing. Since organizations/enterprises keep on changing, it is important to effectively illustrate how you have been able to change or adapt to changes in the past.

b) Demonstrates effective communication skills: it should illustrate your ability to communicate since communication is key in any work environment. Communication is central to career progression and the hiring staff is usually interested in understanding how well you can communicate. Demonstrating your communication skills should focus on both written and oral communication.

c) It should illustrate commitment: this entails demonstrating your dedication to the organization’s corporate culture and the ability to live by the values of such culture. You should be able to illustrate an understanding of the company’s corporate culture.

d) It should demonstrate creativity and positivity: creativity involves highlighting your ability to think from a non-linear dimension. This entails the ability to spot an opportunity. Positivity looks at the ability to use good language in illustrating high spirits.

e) It should characterized by keywords: this looks at the structure of the resume. Concerning this, it should have key word sections that gives the reader a summary of areas of expertise on a one-look.

f) It should demonstrate team spirit and community service: it should illustrate the ability to take initiative in team activities as well as the ability to join causes without necessary being motivated by a financial reward.

g) It should clearly illustrate accomplishments and job descriptions: your accomplishments are central to job seeking and as such, they should be highlighted in bullets to make them more conspicuous.  

The Process of Writing a Resume

Resumes usually contain different information depending on various factors such as the specific target job. Nonetheless, the writing process can be defined by relatively the same steps. These steps are:

Step 1: Analyzing and Stipulating Your Target Job

This step focuses on effectively scrutinizing the job you are applying for and then developing an objective around it. Though not mandatory, when an objective is included, it should be concise and precise.

Step 2: Outlining Your Education Qualifications

This step entails documenting all your training and education qualifications related to your target job. This includes all levels of formal education, occupational training, vocational training, technical training, military training, recognitions, experience in leadership, undertakings in your school life and work experiences, volunteer work, further education, seminars and conferences, and organizational training programs. This can be sub-divided into work experience and education sections.

Step 3: Job Target Review

This entails analyzing the requirements for the job you are applying for. This step is important in helping you align your resume with such job requirements.

Step 4: Developing a Keyword Strategy

This entails coming up with the right terms, phrases, and nouns that demonstrate an understanding of necessary abilities, essential knowledge, and requisite skills for the target job. Jobs in different fields have respective keywords.

Step 5: Creating a Catalog of Your Jobs and their Respective Duties and Responsibilities

This step involves listing down all the job positions you have ever held. It focuses on work experience, where you should stipulate the place you worked and when, the location the companies/firms you worked for, and years of experience in those companies/firms. Duties and responsibilities under each position should be listed down.

Step 6: Listing Your Contributions and Accomplishments

This entails accounting for above average contributions you made when working in different positions. Accomplishments should focus on demonstrating your ability to do great things in the future based on what you did in the past. You should show the differences you made in quantitative numbers.

Step 7: Rewrite and Rearrange Your Resume

This step involves rereading your resume to ensure that it is in the right format, arrangement of subheadings, and void of errors.

Step 8: Writing a Profile

This entails generating a summary of your qualifications, special skills, and key personality traits. This summary should appear at the top of the resume.