A resume is essential to landing your perfect job. The trick is developing a resume that showcases your skills and catches the employer’s eye; it is one of the fundamentals on how to prepare for an interview. No matter if you are starting out or are a professional in your field, there are things that everyone can do to improve their resume.
Here are five ways to improve your resume and snag that job you’ve always wanted.
Make Your Resume Easy to Read
Is your resume hard to read? Do you have a bunch of information scrunched up together? Employers hate having to search through hard-to-read resumes, so make it easy on them.
Try spreading out your information with bullet points. Using bullets will help your potential employer to read your skills and experience to see if you have what they are looking for. Plus, using this formatting will make sure that the hiring person will see everything you have to offer.
Use the Right Words
Using the right words on your resume can be accomplished in different ways. Try to use strong, action driven words such as “managed,” “completed,” “organized,” and “analyzed” to get your point across. These words showcase your experience and skills. It is also important to use specific keywords that relate to your job title in your resume.
For example, if you’re a design use words such as creative and unique. Using keywords will enable potential employers to search for your resume online. With the right keywords, you may even get job offers that you didn’t think of.
Be Visual
Making a visually appealing resume is very important. Think about it: employers have to read hundreds, if not thousands, of resumes to pick the perfect candidates.
The best way to make a visually appealing resume is to be consistent with your font and the text size. When it comes to picking the right font, try aiming for something that is easy on the eyes such as Arial. It is also important to use bold and italicized lettering to point out what is important.
Be Clear and Concise
Don’t use abbreviations on your resume. Abbreviations can be confusing and unprofessional. Make sure that you spell everything out. It is also essential to eliminate clutter or unnecessary information. Try to drop parentheses, articles, and dates that are not important. Eliminating articles is easy.
You can do this by tightening up your sentences and leaving all of the articles like “a” and “the” off. They’re not necessary and your potential employers will appreciate that you’ve gone the extra mile.
Don’t Lie
Getting your perfect job is hard, but it will be ten times harder if you lie. Most people tell little lies or tweak the truth in order to land an interview. But all of your lies will be uncovered during the interview, and you will be embarrassed. Lying on your resume will probably not land you your dream job. Just be proud of what you have done and can do, and make sure that your resume showcases all of your skills.
If you follow the tips above, your resume will amaze any potential employer that you meet.
