Make Your Resume Recruiter-Ready with these Tips!

A resume will most likely be your first step into your dream company. While it can be tempting to have a one-fit-all resume, it would be best that you keep tweaking your resume to match each job you apply for. Below are a few tips to make your resume recruiter-ready;

For  Work Experience,

1. List only previous experiences that are most relevant to the job you are applying for.

2. If you do not have any relevant experience, list the experiences and skills you have that would help in the new role. However, it would be great to pair this with a cover letter that does a good job of explaining how. 

3. Revamp your bullet points so they market you as the perfect fit for the role. Use as many facts, figures and numbers as you can to show that you did not just do stuff but that you got stuff done. Get tips on how to use bullet points to your advantage here.

4. Make it simple and easy to understand. Skip the use of industry jargon in describing your accomplishments and experience.

5. Show your soft skills through your bullet points. Show how these skills helped you accomplish success for your previous employer. By just listing these skills without linking them, your soft skills might sound generic and thus make little or no impact. 

6. List non-traditional work. If you’ve volunteered, worked on a project with friends, blogged or freelanced, as long as these roles are relevant, list them.

7. Avoid words like best of breed, Go-getter, think outside of the box, synergy, go-to-person, results driven, team player and other empty words. Instead use words like achieved, improved, trained/mentored, managed, created, influenced, increased/decreased, negotiated, launched and under-budget in your resume.

For Educational Qualification

1. Unless you are a recent graduate with no work experience, put your work experience section before the section for your educational qualifications.

2. List most recent and more advanced degrees first.

3. There is no need to put the date you earned your degree. All the recruiter wants to see is that you have the educational qualification and not necessarily when you had it.

4. If you have taken or are taking an online course or any form of continuing education, do well to list it.

For Skills, Awards and Interests

1. List out only specialist skills. There is no point putting in skills that everyone is supposed to have.

2. List only interests that are relevant to the job.

3. Include awards you have received.

General Tips

1. Have a master list with all your experiences and qualifications. However, make sure that you keep your resume simple, straight to the point and to one page by highlighting only the most relevant experiences and qualifications you have.

2. Always make sure to put that thing that is most relevant to the job above all the rest. Is it a previous experience, a qualification, a side hustle? Whatever it is, put it first and let the rest follow.

3. Unless you are making a huge career change where you would need to explain why your experience does not match the job, you do not need an objective on your resume.

4. There is no need to put “References Available On Request” on your resume. It is either you put in the contact information of one or two people who can act as references or you totally leave it blank.

5. Save your resume in PDF. Do not email your resume as a .doc file to recruiters. 

6. Save your resume with your full name followed by resume (Eg: John Mensah Resume)

7. Proofread your resume to ensure it is error-free.

8. Make your resume stand-out. Add some colour, ensure information  is neatly and professionally presented.