Having a strong and persuasive CV is a must for anyone who wants to find a dream job and start a successful career. However, most of us lack the skills needed to write a strong resume, so it is more than important to give anyone the tools to create an outstanding resume or CV or improve an existing one.
There is no limit to perfection and there are numerous ways to improve your resume. Below is a list of eight tips presented by ResumesArea.com, which will greatly help you in this complicated process. By following all of them, you will surely grab the attention of any employer!
Place the Accents Correctly
One of the biggest problems of resumes is the fact that people want to include all their skills and experience in it. However, such data makes the CV heavy and most of the HR managers lose interest immediately. Most likely, you will never be invited to the interview.
Remember that your CV should contain only relevant information. Make sure you have deleted all the data about your previous experience or achievements, which has nothing to do with the position you are applying for.
Highlight Your Strengths
No one likes long and meaningless text, so the best way to impress potential employers will be to write a couple of short but catchy sentences to highlight your achievements and make sure that they correspond with the needs of the company.
For example, you can write such a statement as an introductory sentence atop your CV. It may contain your significant success like awards and achievements or be an example why you were one of the most valuable workers on your previous job.
Pay Attention to Key Words
The time when ‘creative and fast-learning team players’ were in high demand has long gone and you need to make sure that you are not using the old dictionary, because it will definitely lead to failure.
Moreover, some companies use special software to examine resumes on the presence of important and relevant key words. Pay careful attention to the job description, discussions on thematic websites and so on. Make sure you possess necessary terms to be considered a professional.
Proper Formatting
There are no unified patterns of how to create a beautiful and harmonious resume and it greatly depends on the company and position you are applying for. If it is a financial institution, you need to be very accurate and use classical design. However, if you want to be a designer, you can be more fluent and show your creative side.
However, you need to remember that it should look appropriate and not distract the reader from the text.
Quantify Your Results
Everyone loves accuracy, especially when it comes to CVs. Who needs three pages of plain text without any details? It is better to provide a shorter resume, which will contain numbers, percentages, dollars and so on.
Provide information on the number of subordinates at the previous place of work or revenue of your department for a certain period. This will greatly illustrate your achievements and skills.
Be Available
In a modern world, everyone appreciates flexibility and effective usage of time, so a nice idea will be to provide not only your email but also a cell phone, links to your social media pages or a personal blog. In such a way, the employer will be able to reach you in a matter of minutes.
Moreover, he will have a chance to evaluate you outside your resume, which may be an additional bonus.
Make your CV Skimmable
You are probably aware that most of employers or recruiters need only a couple of seconds to understand whether you are a proper candidate or not. They usually look for keywords and go through the key points of your resume, so you need to be very careful when you structure the CV.
Try to place key points atop and start every bullet point with the strongest arguments you have. Impress the reader and encourage him to read further!
Don’t Forget about the White Space
At first, it may sound like a weird advice but white space makes it easier to orient in the CV, indicating the beginning of a new section. White space usually gives the employer a chance to catch his breath and process previously read information.
In addition, you should pay careful attention to highlighting various sections of your CV in order to separate them from one another.
Your resume is a way to advertise your skills and abilities, so you need to use all the instruments to make it interesting and bright. Luckily, there are many tutorials and guidelines which will help you in this difficult journey. Make sure you have mastered all of them and don’t hesitate to use them in future.
Post by Brandon Grondwrint, a head of recruitment department at ResumesArea.com. He has been hiring employees for their outsourcing team for over 5 years and knows how a perfect CV should look like.