In today’s fast-paced world, it’s easy for your resume to get lost among thousands of similar documents. Job requirements are getting increasingly advanced and it’s harder to find employment in the modern world. A large number of talent acquisition strategies involve extremely specific skill sets from potential employees. As a result, competition among candidates only continues to increase. In the US, unemployment is a major concern. The job market today is overly-saturated. There are too many candidates but not enough jobs. In this context, it’s important to make sure your chances at employment are enhanced. The easiest way to ensure this is by restructuring your resume. Here’s how you can do this.
List Only Advanced Skill Sets
When structuring their resumes, a large number of people list down every skill set to exist in the world. These also include basic and mundane attributes like knowledge of Microsoft Word, being hardworking, and having good social skills. Such skills hardly impress employees or HR teams. Instead, when you list qualities such as these, you’re more likely to get ignored. Therefore, it’s important for you to list only advanced skills. These can involve project management, sales expertise, and content analysis. However, make sure that you don’t just list these skills. In order to stand out among thousands of other candidates, you need to ensure that you use specific examples of job roles where you used these skills.
Keep it Concise
Many job seekers believe that several pages in a resume translate to greater chances of being recruited. However, this works in the opposite way. When you add a large number of pages, you’re just confusing your reader. Your recruiter doesn’t care about every achievement in your life since the age of 10. In fact, even high school accolades are largely ignored. So, make sure you cut out any irrelevant information. This just makes the process complex.
Thus, when recruiters sift through hundreds of applications, they’re less likely to go forward with the one that’s confusing and dense. As a result, keep your information as concise as you can. When listing job experience, start with the latest and make sure you mention dates along with every job. Along with this, also ensure that you focus more on post-high-school academic qualifications. These can include graduates or post-graduate studies.
Be Specific
A good resume requires specificity. This means that you can’t write lengthy, unnecessary paragraphs that are mostly filled with emotional, irrelevant content that you think will land you the role. If you’re not good at it, don’t write an introduction. This is because if you fill it with stories about how you wanted to be a business analyst ever since you were 7 years old, you’re not likely to hear a call anytime soon. This is where quantification comes in.
When you’re listing skills, achievements, and job roles, it’s important to quantify your achievements. This means that you should add in as many numbers as you can. When you say that you made 50 sales in a month instead of saying you made many sales in a month, you become more specific and thus clearer to the recruiter or employer.
Customize According to Job Requirements
Yes, structuring resumes requires a lot of hard work. Many people don’t have the time to customize and edit resumes for every job they apply to. However, once you start doing this, your chances of getting hired rise significantly. This is because when you list attributes and qualifications that are directly related to what your recruiter wants, you’re more likely to get hired.
In addition to this, a large number of companies today use AI to narrow down resumes. Such technology searches for keywords that are similar to the job requirements posted by recruiters. Many people make the mistake of structuring one resume and then using it for every place they apply to. Not only does this make your document irrelevant, but it also reduced your chances of employment.
Check Grammar and Formatting
This is simple but effective. Proper grammar and formatting are very important when you’re building your resume. Make sure that you have no punctuation or spelling mistakes. Additionally, your grammar should be impeccable. Also, make sure you format your resume with PDF and not Word. The former looks both official and presentable. If you use Word, there are also greater chances of your formatting changing once your recruiter opens the document.
