1) Know your audience: In today’s job market, interviewers have to sift through dozens of applications in order to find the right candidate. Make sure you stand out as THE candidate they are seeking! Tailor your resume specifically for each submission and make sure you are highlighting the key qualifications that the hiring manager will be manually searching for, as well as optimizing keywords that will be recognized by an Applicant Tracking System (ATS). Presently, more than half of all resumes are initially scanned in an ATS rather than viewed by human eyes.
2) Add a personal touch: Add a personal touch and a unique look to your resume that is well-suited for your field of work. Personalize your resume with a stylistic format, simple graphics, a bold “branded” heading, or even consider adding a QR code that leads to a webpage with samples of your work. Include a link to your LinkedIn handle or other professional profiles.
3) Hook the interviewer: Increase the impact and effectiveness of your resume and enhance your marketing power by adjusting your documents for each submission. Each job application requires a different set of skills that pulls different aspects of your resume. Simply sending a generic resume cannot and should not be attempted. Make sure to also add plenty of keywords relevant to the job application in your resume in order to catch the interviewer’s attention.
4) Brag time: Though it’s important to err on the side of caution and stay humble, your professional resume is neither the time nor the place for modesty. Employers read resumes to better understand your professional skills and experience and they’re expecting to hear about your accomplishments. Using “active tense” sentence structure, concisely outline achievements rather than duties to reduce redundancy and showcase your capabilities.
5) Polished cover letters: Cover letters give you a chance to further mention why you’re the right choice and provide examples that convey the value and expertise you will bring to the new company. Think of the cover letter as a short advertisement. Keep your cover letters brief (less than one page), upbeat, and to the point.
Written Resumes offers professional resume, cover letter, and job search assistance services for all types of candidates including executives, government/public sector, and high-tech industries.