6 Great Resume Tips
These 6 tips will get you started on your stand-out resume!
1. Assess your strengths and training.
Assess where you have been and where you want to focus your efforts. Visualize your ideal job, and yourself there, doing the work. What do you see? Visualization will help make your goals real, helping you achieve what you desire.
2. Focus on your last 5 years.
If you are a new grad, focus on your learning as you were training or going to a post-secondary institution. Your field is continuously changing, and you must showcase how you have changed, developed and grown with it. If you have worked for some time, you certainly want to capture all of your experience. You will add this background and say just a bit about each job. But you will add about 3-5 bullets below the most recent 5 years. Your prospective employers want to know what you have been up to most recently. Take the time to showcase your recent growth and skillset development.
3. Quantify.
Resumes that capture attention have data listed. Wherever appropriate, include data. For example: “Increased customer service satisfaction by 25%” or “Managed a $2M budget, meeting 100% of expected accountabilities”.
4. List all the “value-added” activities that you bring to a prospective employer.
You may wonder if mentioning your volunteer work, or being on the Social Committee is worth mentioning. After all, doesn’t everyone do this sort of thing? But prospective employers want to know what you will add when you get there. Knowing where you will contribute and show leadership is something all employers are looking for. If you are a new grad, you should include activities like volunteer work, organizations you belonged to, roles you held in these organizations, and work experiences during your educational years.
5. Think about your references.
“References Available Upon Request” is the standard comment used at the end of the resume. Who should you include? Experienced employees may include their current and past leaders who were in a supervisory capacity. If you are a new grad, work supervisors should be included as references. (Asking for references and reference letters is a bit tricky! You may need to ask for specific information to be included in letters. More about references in a later post.)
6. Make a draft of your resume.
List everything you want to showcase to a prospective employer, even if the resume becomes long. When it comes time to submit your resume, you will select the information needed to create a tailor-made one for the job you are applying for, in a two-page format.
Preparation is the key to success, the more time you take to prepare the better your resume will be. Take each of these steps one day at a time, and spend some time on them. In the end, you will get not only the job you want, but the career you deserve.
Need some additional help with your resume? Contact Kerry at Black Ink Coaching today!
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