Your resume buys you an entry pass to an interview for your dream job. However, having one doesn’t mean it will always guarantee your entry as well. Beyond spamming the numerous job experiences, qualifications and skills that you have, you have to understand that your resume is your first shot at marketing yourself.
How should your resume look like?
#1 Be Concise – Page Limits
Unless the recruiter is a big fan of reading biographies, sending a 10-page resume might not be very wise. Apart from the 7 seconds attention span of recruiters, sending over a 10-page resume might distract them from the most relevant and impactful information that you might want to showcase. Typically, resumes should be of 2 pages long, maximum 3 pages, and should include information that is most relevant to the job that you are applying for.
#2 Be Clear – Fonts & Bullet Points
As boring as Times New Roman, Arial and Calibri can look, they are crowned the top 3 fonts for resume. These fonts are professional, easy-to-read and recruiters are already so used to these fonts that using any other fanciful fonts might make it difficult for them to read your resume. Font size 12 will be awesome and will keep you within the page limits while anything lower than 10.5 might be too small for comfort.
#3 Content – Basic Elements
As for the aesthetic part of the resume, you can consider going online to find a template that best suits you. Keep in mind to keep it as simple and as professional as possible. The basic elements of a resume should include the following.
1. Contact Information. This can include your name, your mobile number, your email and in recent years, your LinkedIn URL. You want to make sure that the recruiters know how to reach you.
2. Education History. Usually diplomas and degrees would suffice as they are deemed to be more relevant and they should be listed in reverse chronological order. You should include the name of the institution, your date of graduation, your diploma/degrees’ major/minor and where applicable your achievements.
3. Employment History. This should form bulk of your resume and will be the element that will earn you the points to get that interview. Your job experiences should be listed in reverse chronological order with your latest or current employment at the top. You may include internship experiences if they are relevant. You should include the company name, your position, your employment period, your job responsibilities and achievements. We will elaborate later on how you can create meaningful and impactful phrases in this section of your resume.
4. Skills. You can include soft or hard skills that might be relevant for the job you are applying for. For example, any software or languages you are proficient in.
5. Others (Optional). You can consider adding in your Volunteer Work experience or Hobbies & Interest into the resume to earn some brownie points. However, if you are having difficulty to stay within the page limits, it should be fine to omit these.
How to make your resume impactful?
Go above and beyond. What we meant by above and beyond is that you have to include something that is more than your bare minimum job scope, such as your achievements, in your employment history. It is best to include qualitative and quantitative facts into the description. For example,
- Played a vital role in the creation of a business case and performing due diligence key to a $9.2M merger and acquisition
- Executed and trained colleagues in use of new customer relationship management system that increased timeliness and accuracy of financial reporting by 50%
Use keywords. It will be awesome if you can customize your employment history to the role. Refer to the job description and use the keywords found in the job description in the elaboration of your employment history. This can help to increase your visibility to the recruiters as they use keyword search and CTRL F to screen your resumes at times.
