How To Prepare An Effective Resume For Your Next Job?
So you’re probably wondering how to prepare a resume that leads to companies inviting you for the interviews. First impressions are essential in proving yourself a potentially valuable asset to the organization. A well-planned resume can demonstrate your concise business standards, achievements and with that, you have high chances of earning an interview.
In this guide, you’ll learn strategies to tailor your resume according to the role you’re applying for and how to present your skills and credentials as a new job seeker or mid-career professional. Before writing your resume, focus on what your employers are looking for. It will help you schedule networking connections with top-notch industry professionals. Create a robust, detailed resume to get noticed by recruiters.
So, let us discuss why resume building is essential for your career.
– It highlights your employment history, which provides specific details on your achievement goals.
– It states your education information, certifications, and other credentials that give the hiring manager a glimpse of your skills.
– Any additional skills and information that highlight your specialized technical skills.
If you haven’t updated your resume for a while, it can be hard to know where to start.
Well, search no more; you’ve come to the right place. Hiring managers scan multiple resumes to fill that one unique position. The following tips will make your resume worth a closer look. We’ve compiled the best resume tips you need in one place to know how to prepare a resume:
How To Prepare An Effective Resume For Your Next Job
1. Look For Relevant Keywords In Job Postings:
It is essential to tailor your resume according to each job you apply for. Study each job description and apply the relevant keywords that show the employer you’re the ideal candidate. If you have the required skills that the employer is looking for, mention them in the experience section of your resume.
Add relevant keywords in your resume and increase your resume’s chance of getting through to the next round. It is vital to grab the hiring manager’s attention and the potential tracking system they have in place. Use resume keyword optimization tool for gaining competitive advantage.
- They help to align your content with job requirements.
- Analyze job descriptions for your target roles and incorporate keywords.
Tip: Insert relevant and appropriate keywords for the job position in your resume
2. Include A Resume Summary Or Objective:
A resume objective, in a nutshell, is the goal of the resume. If you’re an experienced professional, it helps you describe your skills and experience much better. Even if you don’t have any experience, you can list your traits/achievements and stand out among other applicants. Ensure that your resume objectives consist of these pro tips listed:
- Ensure to tailor or format your resume objective concerning the specific position or organization you’re applying to.
- Include your skills and abilities. Describe how well you’ll add value as an employee. State your value propositions / USP’s to have the edge over other candidates.
- Include objective statements that fit the job role. It makes the hiring manager dig deeper into your resume and your credentials.
- Set the stage for the rest of your resume- By highlighting the essential skills and achievements, you give a taste or a trailer to your hiring manager what’s coming up next in your resume.
Tip: Tailor your resume according to the job description and job role.
3. Include The Most Relevant Information First:
Including the most important relevant information first helps managers understand your role fitness and consume the pivotal information. It enhances the image of your resume in the hiring manager’s mind. It is the crucial point that tells how to prepare a resume.
- Include numbers. It is important to curate your bullet points. Highlighting the numbers helps the hiring manager to understand the value you will bring to the organization based on your experience.
- State how many people were impacted by your work and how much percentage you achieved your goals.
- Keep it concise and easy to read- Readability is the key to gaining competence. Most HRs become responsive to the most listed on-point statements, which bring measurable value.
Tip: Highlight your achievements and goals, rather than describing your previous job responsibilities.
4. Take It One Step Further:
Curate a sleek, uncluttered design which is impressive. It is another way to impress your recruiter with a top-notch resume design. Try to emulate a beautifully designed resume with all digital elements that extend yourself and the work you do. Create a personal logo for yourself by using a symbol or initials to put your best foot forward when landing professional opportunities.
Use top-notch designs that are right on the top trends. It helps you stay creative among the sea of candidates applying for jobs in creative roles. To stay ahead of the group, you should consider designing your resume with the proper on-trend templates. Customize your resume with unique infographics.
Tip: Add visual emphasis on your contact information, and choose the perfect font.
5. Choose The Right Font For Your Professional Resume:
Select a clear, readable font that will make your resume look more professional. Ensure to eliminate or reduce any unnecessary white space. Too much white space can make your resume look sparse or cluttered. Maintaining a suitable space helps the reader to focus on the content. The right font helps to stand out and keeps eyeballs bouncing away from your resume.
So what should you keep in mind while selecting a font, and how to prepare resume?
- Maintain a consistent font size- with headers being the same size.
- Keep your font size between 11-14 points to fit items and content understandably.
- Choose appropriate margins on all sides of your resume with single spaces between the lines.
- You can increase the margins to fit the content accordingly. The content should fit appropriately.
- Ensure that your headers and bullet points line up to create an excellent visual experience.
Tip: Align your contact and make it skimmable.
6. Organize Your Work Experiences In Chronological Order:
The work experience section is where you get to show yourself your work prototype and other achievements. So make sure you iron out all the details and format the content precisely. If you want to outshine other candidates, you know for a fact that they will list down the candidates with the whole experience.
When listing your previous job roles, it is vital to list them in a sequence of chronological order. So we recommend you to follow the standard work experience format and know how to prepare resume:
- Name, Job title/ position
- Name of the company. Job description
- Work experience and achievements.
What if you don’t have much job experience?
You can list down university achievements, soft skills, and personal traits. You can consider adding your projects, university projects, summer internships for HR to know that you have gained hands-on experience.
Tip: Be consistent with your choices, and give your sections, simple subheadings
7. Connect Your Resume With Your Linkedin Profile:
It is an excellent way to enhance the growth of networks. You have better chances of getting selected in an interview, thanks to the professional connections built on LinkedIn. As per LinkedIn, 86% of jobs get filled due to powerful networking. Most recruiters look at your LinkedIn profile to determine your work experiences and connections.
While creating your resume, the same strategies and factors should be used when creating your LinkedIn profile. You can add a section on your LinkedIn profile that features testimonials from people you’ve worked with previously or assisted in some way. It’s important to ensure that any information included on both has consistency so as not to appear as two different people.
Tip: Include URLs to social media profiles, websites.
8. Add Your Achievements
Add to your resume for each job you’ve held by marking three accomplishments that you made at each company that is related to the role in question. List three abilities that you have mastered. Focus on the abilities, not on the job tasks you used them for. For example, if you’ve been working as an English teacher for your last two jobs, change this to “I know how to communicate clearly” and then focus on examples of accomplishments that illustrate how that ability was demonstrated in practice.
Tip: Add your rewards, achievements, and targets fulfilled to impress the recruiters.
9. Keep It Short
Keep your resume details short and concise. Keep your content to the point and make sure what you’re trying to communicate about yourself comes across as effective even though at times it can seem like a tedious process of trying to get that first job experience or stand out from other applicants who are also going after similar jobs.
Tip: Keep your job postings precise and concise
10. Don’t Lie Or Embellish
You should avoid embellishing or misrepresenting your resume; these tactics may not come back to haunt you until you’re actually getting ready for your next job interview, but by then it’s too late to change anything.
Tip: Be honest in describing your employment history.
Resume Makers Apps/ Website
Here we present you with some fantastic tools that help the recruiter to get a better sense of who you are and how to prepare a resume:
- Canva – The templates are entirely customizable with unique fonts, colors, layouts, and drag- and drop tools.
- Live Career– It provides the best hands-off resume-building solutions and top templates.
- Resume Genius– It is an effective resume-building tool that highlights important skills and accomplishments.
- Indeed– It is an awesome resume builder which shares your resume with prospective employees on site.
Key Takeaways
To recap the whole summary of how to prepare resume, we have listed the major vital takeaways:
i) Firstly, stick to the proper formatting of the work experience section in chronological order.
ii) Highlight the relevant keywords in the job postings to ensure maximum readability by the HR manager.
iii) Include the most relevant information at the top of the resume with the precise format.
Once you’ve completed your resume, try to proofread them accordingly using the above tips. As you progress in your job, you can revise your resume accordingly. We hope these tips help you craft a professional resume and should help you get more interviews/ offers. Do you think we can add more points or tips on building an effective resume? Do let us know in the following section.