Seeking Help
A resume is one of the most important documents in your career life. It could be the difference between securing a job and the otherwise. For this reason, you are encouraged to seek writing help to ensure that you produce a top quality resume. In that case, you can consult with our competent and experienced experts any time you need such help. Contact us through our chat forum or send us an email to info@professionalwritingbay.com and we’ll promptly come to your aid.
That said, below are some key resume writing tips and elements.
What is a Resume?
A resume is a document that presents your skills and accomplishments to a potential employer, persuading the individual to give you a specific job.
Tips for Writing a Good Resume
There are various things that you should aim to include in your resume to make it more interesting to the potential employer. Some of these things include:
1. Adopt a Professional Format and avoid Errors
Since you are likely to be competing with other qualified individuals for a job, you should create a resume that portrays you in the best possible light. You are therefore required to write a professional document that is well formatted as well as free of grammatical and factual errors.
A resume offers your potential employer a glimpse or your professionalism and instruction-following abilities. Therefore, you should format it in the potential employer’s preferred style. If the hirer requires you to use a specific writing method, you should follow the approach absolutely.
Note that a specified format may be required for automated information analysis, with non-conforming resumes failing to integrate properly with the employer’s computerized selection process.
Also, your format should provide the most essential information first, with qualifications that might interest the employer most coming first. By creating a well-formatted and appropriate resume that is free of grammatical mistakes, you are likely to stand out from a large number of applicants, in so doing improving the likelihood that you will get the job.
2. Provide Concise Details
You should provide a concise description of your education, career accomplishments, and relevant hobbies. You should not pad your resume with unnecessary details because the potential employer is likely to notice and dismiss you for wasting his/her time.
Instead, you should only include enough information to convince the hirer that you are the right person for the job because your skills and knowledge match those required to carry out its requirements effectively.
If some of your skills or work experiences are not especially suited to the job, you should omit them or include very brief references to them. Instead of using the same resume for all potential employers, you should revise it to fit the requirements of every specific job.
3. Illustrate your Reliability
Besides presenting your skills and knowledge, a resume should show the hirer that you are a reliable individual. A resume that shows that you have been consistently employed is particularly useful in demonstrating that you are reliable.
As such, you should not leave out significant gaps in your employment history. If you did not have a job at the time, you should be prepared to provide a suitable explanation for the employment gap.
Another useful method of revealing that you are reliable is the inclusion of trustworthy referees who can attest to your dependability and diligence. It is important that you do not include referees who would benefit directly from your success, especially if they are close relatives.
The best referees are former employers and supervisors who can offer relatively unbiased and informed views about your reliability and abilities. Accordingly, you should not include referees who might provide negative views about you.
Essential Features of a Resume
A good resume is defined by some key features. These features are likely to be the difference between securing the job and otherwise. Per se, your resume should contain:
1. Contact Information
To make it easy for the hirer to contact you, you should include up-to-date contact information in the first section of your resume. If you provide contact information that makes it difficult for the hirer to communicate with you, he/she is likely to hire another qualified individual who is easily notified about the opportunity.
The information should also be suited to a professional situation. For instance, if you include a personal e-mail address, it should be acceptable in a professional setting. Additionally, your contact information should not be that of your current employer. Providing contact information that utilizes your employer’s resources to find another job may raise questions about your fidelity and competence.
2. Career Accomplishments
Your highest career accomplishments are the best indicators of your capabilities for a specific job. If your other duties in your previous jobs are especially similar to the one you are applying for, the hirer is likely to consider your experience as an attractive characteristic.
You should only provide brief descriptions of your accomplishments in the resume. For extended and more personal explanations why your accomplishments make you a suitable candidate, you should write a cover letter if the hirer allows or requires you to present one.
3. Demonstrable Skills and Experience
You should provide a list of your skills and experience that are accompanied by measurable accomplishments. For example, if you led a company through a recovery or a particularly productive period, you should provide brief descriptions of your contributions.
Additionally, rather than listing your position in a previous job, you should list your duties and how they benefitted the firm. Lastly, you should avoid common buzzwords such as go-getter, team player, or outside-the-box thinker when writing about your experience and skills.
4. Educational Attainments
You should provide a list of your educational attainments, starting with your highest achievement to make it easy for your hirer to decide whether you are suitable for the job. You should not embellish any of your accomplishments because your employer is likely to fact-check your claims. If you are caught exaggerating any attainments, you are unlikely to get the job.
5. Additional Undertakings and Interests
Employers are likely to be interested in knowing that you have other interests and accomplishments beyond your career. If the undertakings are tangentially related to the job you are applying for, they may improve the likelihood that you secure the job.
Note that interests that match those of your potential employer may also increase your attractiveness as an employee. However, you should be careful to include only suitable interests that show that you are a well-rounded and interesting individual.