You’ve sent out countless resumes and pored over endless classified job ads, but you still don’t have a bite on an interview. What are you doing wrong? The following tips can help you improve your resume so it gets noticed by the hiring manager and can practically guarantee an interview. Instead of moping or thinking of planting a vegetable garden for sustenance, give it a try, and you may be pleasantly surprised by the results. We have also compiled a list of best resume tips in 2016 to help you land that interview.
1. Make Your Language Compelling
Use the first few seconds it takes to read your resume to present a compelling statement about why you are perfect for the job. That doesn’t mean you need to be able to write like a famous author with a bestseller. Use spare language and detail to explain what you can do to benefit the company. Write the reasons why you were essential in your former job. Connect your old job to the new job by using parallels to show how you would be a valuable asset to the company.
2. Include Relevant Keywords
Use the job description to find relevant keywords (those words special to the job classification), and place them in your resume. Companies use specific keywords to help them find the right person for the job. A hiring manager or recruiter will be scanning resumes for these keywords to find potential candidates.
For example, recruiters for administrative assistant jobs may look for words such as scheduling, record-keeping, or communication skills. If an employer uses a tracking system for applicants, keywords that appear near the top of a resume or more often get boosted up toward the top of the pile of applications. Also, use specific word groupings that appear in the job description. If the word used in the job description is record-keeping, use that term—not bookkeeping.
3. Have a Good Flow
A resume should be easily readable and have good flow—just like a good story. Your story includes your accomplishments, your creativeness and special abilities, where you worked, and how you benefited previous employers.
4. Make It Neat and Professional
A resume that uses a fancy font, curlicues, or little hearts will get zero attention from a hiring manager. This is not the place to present your creative talents, unless you are applying for a position as an artist or something similar. Leave out graphic elements except for bullet points. Underlining can make a hiring manager think you are including a hyperlink, so just leave it out.
5. Use Line Spacing When Needed
Although you want your resume to be in chronological order like a story, you don’t want it to look like the page out of an old history book. Resumes with too much information crammed onto one page are difficult to read, boring, and look like too much work to extract relevant data. Breaking your resume up with line spaces that are strategically placed can do wonders. It can also be helpful to use blocks of information with spaces in between to make it easily scannable and readable. That way, the hiring manager will get a clear picture of your work and accomplishments. If you have so much to include in a resume that using a few line spaces isn’t possible, your resume is too long, and you need to start cutting.
A resume that is well-written, neat and informative goes a long way toward getting you that important interview if you have the right job qualifications. Doing your job search through job ads is one way to hunt for that new position. TheJobNetwork expands on job hunting by doing your job search for you and sending you email alerts when positions fitting your qualifications come up. In this way, you are being proactive and are not going to miss out on any potential employers that might be right for you. After you list your job interests and qualifications, you can also search among our over 2 million job listings yourself. Sign up with TheJobNetwork to get started.
