The Recruiting Blog of KG Workforce Solutions.
According to Glassdoor and numerous other resources, hiring managers and recruiters spend about six seconds reviewing a résumé. This means that your résumé needs to be concise and relevant. It needs to grab the reader’s attention quickly. For many job seekers, the hardest part of résumé writing is pairing it down. What do you include? What do you exclude? Should you omit education or experience? What accomplishments should you include?
If you are struggling with developing a concise and relevant résumé, below are some tips to help you determine what to add and what to remove!
Make a list of your professional accomplishments; any and all of them. Read your list at least twice. Then, highlight the accomplishments that are relevant to the job for which you are applying. Cross-reference the job posting to ensure you are actually highlighting only relevant ones. Those are the accomplishments that need to shine on your résumé (Page 1)!
Pro tips
Make a list of your primary duties for each job. For each duty listed, ask yourself the following three questions:
If you answer “no” to question three, scratch through that duty. That duty provides no relevance to the job for which you are applying, which means the hiring manager is not likely to find value in it. The remaining duties are the ones you should include in your résumé. Make sure you demonstrate the value of the duty in your résumé; don’t just list tasks.
Pro tips
The above will ensure your content is relevant. You still need it to be concise and accomplishment focused. The below tips will help keep your content concise:
Make a list of your degrees, certifications, and professional training. Highlight the ones that are relevant to the job for which you are applying. Those are the ones that should be in your résumé.
Pro tips:
Use the same process from the above steps to evaluate other categories on your résumé, such as Honors & Awards, Skills Tables, Competencies, etc. Make a comprehensive list and highlight the relevant content. It might be hard but LEAVE OFF THE REST. If it is not relevant, it adds minimal, if any, value to your résumé for the specific job for which you are applying (yes, you have to tweak your résumé for every unique position or category of positions).
While a one-page résumé is no longer the standard, it is still important to be concise and relevant. Few people will read a six-page résumé. Remember, a résumé is a marketing tool to get you an interview. The interview gets you the job. Your résumé is your “sales brochure”. Tell the manager what he/she NEEDS to know, not everything about you. If you were considering a landscaper to make your yard beautiful, would you hire the landscaper who brought you a brochure about his vinyl siding skills? Probably not.
Review your résumé and make sure it tells a story. Effective résumé writing showcases your value and successes. One of my favorite quotes is “demonstrative not declarative.”
For more advice on résumé writing or job search tips, follow our blog and social media pages (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn). Need customized résumé writing help? Contact us.
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