Your resume can make or break your future job success before you even get a chance to interview.
Read our top tips on creating a winning resume.
An effective professional resume is a crucial component in any job search and it should be thoughtfully designed to convey essential employment information and emphasize your strengths. It should create a positive and enthusiastic response from the hiring organization or recruiter and, hopefully, result in an interview.
The perfect resume format has to:
- Pass applicant tracking systems and use vital keywords
- Showcase your value as a future employee
Here are our top tips for doing just that!
- Decide on the resume format that best suits your situation. It might be chronological – the most traditional format – or it could be what’s known as a functional resume that lists your relevant skills. A Functional resume format is best suited to entry-level job applicants with little work experience. A popular and well-received resume format is often a hybrid of the two styles; one that highlights your qualifications and skills upfront (functional) but also lays out your work history in date order (chronological).
- One inch margins make for a clean presentation.
- Create a proper resume header format for your contact details
- Pick one font and one size (11 or 12 point preferably) and stick with it! Bolding is okay; you just don’t want to overdo it with several font styles and sizes.
- Make sure that your qualifications, which can be in the form of an Executive Summary, are front and centre on your resume. This can be a brief paragraph or a bullet-style listing of your accomplishments but keep it succinct and relevant.
- Bullet points are your friend when it comes to listing your job responsibilities. Try to avoid extra-long paragraphs.
- Don’t use photos, please.
- If you have an extensive work history, don’t feel that you need to put it all out there. Most employers are primarily interested in what you’ve accomplished in the past 10-15 years, at most. If there is a significant gap between the year you graduated and the oldest job listed on your resume, just keep the explanation to a brief sentence or two.
- Proof-read, spell check and then repeat! A fresh pair of eyes looking at your resume will help as well.
