Your Resume is the First Element to Decide Your Job Capability

The first thing that decides how soon you are going to have an interview with a recruiting manager is your resume. Whether you are looking to land a new job or you want to change your career stream, the first and foremost thing is to have your resume shortlisted.

Each recruiter follows the different benchmarks to shortlist candidates, but all of them aim at short listing of resumes that seem to be worth their weight in gold to their organisations. You must have written a resume for a couple of times if this is not your first job search, but it may not be as impressing as should be.

You all know that you need to add qualification, skills and work experience to your resume to allow an employer to know what you know and how you can benefit their organisation. Yet, you often face difficulties to have you resume shortlisted by recruiters and employers.

If you want to grow in your career, you need to ensure that your resume has enough strength to drive attention from reputed companies. Here are some of the tips to write an impressive resume.

Choose the format for your resume

Before you choose a particular format, you should research online. There are generally three types of formats: chronological, functional and the combination of both. The most common format is chronological in which you explain your resume objective, then professional experience and then skills and qualification.

However, it is not necessary that you need to follow this format only. If you want to emphasise your skills, you should prefer a functional resume. If you are looking to change your career stream, you should try to prepare a resume in a functional format.

This is because your skills (how you find suitable for a particular role in a particular industry) play an essential role than your experience (where and how long you worked).

Write a career objective

A career objective should be in two-to-three lines that will help an employer quickly analyse your skills and experience. Even if you are changing your career stream, you need to mention a career objective because it gives you a direction to grow.

However, make sure that the career objective is different from the one you wrote for your previous career stream. Try to relate your skills to ensure the employer finds you suitable for your new job. This is the first thing that a hiring manager will read in your resume, and if this is off beam, you will not get shortlisted.

Be savvy about keywords

Of course, you are not alone who is in a job search, especially during the pandemic time when a large number of people have lost their jobs. To get a call from a recruiter, you need to ensure that your resume ranks well when they search using a particular keyword.

So before posting your updated resume, you should read job postings that interest you and find out what kind of keywords they have used. Include those keywords in your resume wherever relevant.

If you have the skills that the job poster has mentioned in the job description, you can add them in your resume. This will increase the chances of being shown up. As a result, different employers will approach you.

Filter unnecessary information

According to research, hiring managers hardly spend more than five seconds to analyse a resume. Therefore, you must keep it as brief as possible, ensuring that you do not miss critical information. It is a must to include qualification, skills and professional experience, but make sure that it is relevant to your profile.

For instance, if you are looking for a job in the administration sector, you do not need to show teaching experience, for example, that you had under your belt at the beginning of your career. This is extremely important if you are switching your career. Try to highlight information that will make it relevant to your employer with a particular job profile.

Highlight important achievements

You all often mention your roles in a professional summary. Instead of listing all of your duties in that section, you should target your professional accomplishments for each job. Highlighting them separately from your career summary will help recruiters quickly analyse your suitability for the role you are applying for. Further, it will ensure the quality of learning in the workplace that employers must look into resumes.

If you are looking to get a new job or you are looking to change your career stream, make sure that you have updated your resume, and this is as much attractive as possible. Make sure that you have written an impressive career objective and highlight all skills that you have and are relevant to your job profile. 

Many students fund their education with student loans in Ireland and then start their career. Of course, you do not have the experience to show in your resume, but make sure that you have skills and some internship certificates that prove your eligibility for a specific job role.