Your resume helps you get a foot in the door. The rest is up to you. If you’re struggling to get a call back, you need a better resume.
How can you make it happen? With these five tried-and-true tips.
1. Be Tense
In elementary school, you learned about verbs. They come in a variety of flavors, most commonly present and past. Both of these belong in your resume.
When writing about your current job, use present tense. These verbs take place right now and look like this:
Manage a team of 14 professionals and ensure constant profit growth.
For previous jobs, go with past tense. Here’s an example:
Managed a team of 14 professionals and ensured constant profit growth.
See the difference? If you want a better resume, don’t get them confused.
2. Be Consistent
Determine what you want your resume to look like, then make it look that way. Don’t swap format halfway through.
This means using a single font for most things. It also means consistent use of bold or italic fonts.
But it means more than that. When you list your job responsibilities, each should be worded in a similar manner. This can be tricky to catch unless you know what to look for.
To get a better resume, you’ll have to do it though.
Imagine these entries:
Oversaw quality control of end product.
I was responsible for inventory and accounts receivables.
See the difference? Neither is right or wrong. Just be consistent. (To be honest, I prefer the first. It’s shorter and more direct. That’s a good thing! Speaking of shorter…)
3. Be Short
You’ve done some impressive stuff in your career. Shouldn’t you list it all? Not if you want a better resume.
Skip the jobs where you left after a few months. Reduce your responsibilities to the ones that match with your career aspirations. And find ways to make everything you write short and snappy.
Thanks to the internet, HR pros are drowning in resumes. With so many resumes to deal with, HR pros toss long-winded ones in the trash.
The best way to avoid being looked over is to keep your resume nice and tight. Ideally, keep it to a single page. This allows HR to immediately review your skills and work history.
By not making them flip pages, you reduce the chance that they’ll flip past you. As an added perk, if the word “efficient” shows up on your resume, keeping things short proves you’re just that.
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