4 Ways to Improve Your Resume

No matter how good your resume or C.V., it can always be better. Try the following four strategies to bump yours up into the category of greatness, and see if you can’t land that dream job.

1. Make it skim-able

Ease of reading is key. Organize your document so that the hiring manager can find the information they need without effort or strain of any kind. Work hardest on the headers, eliminate unnecessary verbiage, and concentrate on putting the most important and relevant information in the first five words of each description. The faster they can get the gist of how great you are, the better.

2. Tailor to the job

Yes, tailoring each resume you send to the particular position is a pain—and requires a ton of extra work, but it’s a great habit to get into. It’s more important to do this than to have one resume that is formatted beautifully and fits perfectly on to one page. Figure out what the hiring manager wants from a candidate, and do your best to present yourself specifically in that light.

3. Make it mobile

We never used to have to think about how our perfectly formatted resume would read on a smart phone or a PDA. This is, however, the world we live in now. Double check how your files open on these mobile devices and alter accordingly to make sure you’re not shortchanging yourself if a hiring manager reads your application on the run.

4. Go live

Make a website for yourself for job search purposes. It doesn’t need to include much more than your resume, but it’s always useful to have a direct link in case a file is unreadable on one device or computer or the other. It’s also a very useful way to encourage people to look at your portfolio—without being asked for it directly. Endless tinkering of your resume is not the idea here. Just make sure you’re firing on all cylinders, then update it, and let it go. Get out there and get the job!