Are you looking to move up or wanted to switch to a new career? Have you recently graduated from college and want to highlight unique skills? Do you have lots of work experience and need to cut it down to smaller sentences? Well, you need to make a resume that stands out to open more doors for you to choose from. A corporate job opening receives an average of 250 resumes. Thus, it’s true that a great job starts with a great resume. So, let’s discuss some tips on designing an impressive resume.
A resume is a summary of your personal, educational, and professional data. It’s a baseline to landing your dream job. Most successful job seekers invest time to create an impressive resume, such as using a logo generation app to give their portfolio a unique personality. They see to it that it captures the essence of their unique qualifications and who they are. Just like promoting a product, a resume should promote the person within.
Basic Resume Rules
Your resume must have all the information needed to convince the recruiter that you’re a good fit for the applied position. The basic resume rules suggest to include the following sections:
- Contact Information should be on top of any resume. Placing this section on the top portion makes it handy for recruiters to communicate with you using your name and address, email, and phone numbers. You may also include any online messaging account or portfolio.
- Educational Accomplishments should include the name and location of the institution or school you’ve attended. These should come together with the degree you have finished with any field of study or major. Start the list from the highest or most recent degree.
- Employment history should start from the most recent position you’ve handled. For every work experience, insert the company name and location, your work position, plus the start and end date of your employment. Add a summary of your job responsibilities for each position you’ve held.
- Other information may include the awards and skills you have acquired relevant to your application to the job position. You can include hobbies or interests that also relate to it. Avoid putting political or religious affiliations unless needed.
Keep Your Resume Simple but Outstanding.
A clean and simple layout is best. The section headings should be in bold and capital letters. It may also be in a different color to stand out clear. Overstuffed resumes are hard to read. See to it that there’s plenty of white spaces for the recruiter to read it easily. Unless you’re applying as an artist or designer, skip the fancy graphics, illustrations, and pie charts. They don’t blend well with software that scans resumes.
Today, most job seekers use a resume in PDF form. Such a format can make a good-looking document with a touch of exclusivity. Sending your resume in PDF makes it outstanding. The formatting remains the same as you designed it. Whether the recruiter opens it on a desktop, laptop, smartphone, or other devices will remain the same. Unlike if you send a word document, the fonts and margins may be inconsistent. To create a resume in PDF, you can check a free pdf editor online.
Replace Your Resume Objective into a Summary Statement
A career or resume objective is an overview of an applicant’s professional goals. It’s a one or two-sentence explanation of why he is seeking employment. This style has gone out of fashion. It’s smart to replace it with a summary statement to highlight the value you can offer to a company. A recruiter may not be able to read your entire resume. Putting a summary statement right below your contact information can spark his attention to read your resume in full. Make it brief but powerful.
In a summary statement, tell who you are and what you do. State your most relevant strength and years of experience in the position you’re targeting. Alternatively, you can focus on your qualifications. State the skills you can offer and how they would benefit the company.
Spotlight Your Skills and Other Accomplishments
Before applying for a job, you need to understand the job description and qualifications thoroughly. Check which program and skills are mentioned. In this way, you can list the skills that match the need on your resume. You may also include any program or training you’ve completed to build up your qualifications further. Consider adding any volunteer experience that’s related to the position you’re applying to. These things can spotlight the skills you have outside of the workplace.
The Bottom Line
An impressive resume is not just a plain document. Be honest and straightforward in building yourself up. At the same time, use your creativity to impress the recruiter. Remember the rules. It should have all the information needed to convince a company to hire you. Take advantage of a free pdf editor online to create a resume that transcends all devices and platforms. Use a summary statement instead of a career objective. And spotlight the achievements and skills you have acquired outside the workplace. As such, a resume is an exaggeration of the good things a person has done.
