 Whether you realize it or not, your resume can always be improved upon. In actuality, your resume is basically a “living, breathing document” that should continue to evolve as your career grows.
Of course, sometimes you’re just too busy to give your resume the attention it deserves. In fact, there are some changes that might not even come to mind. We’ve enlisted the help of the article, “45 Quick Changes That Help Your Resume Get Noticed” on TheMuse.com to bring those changes to mind. We’re not going to list all 45, just the 10 changes to your resume you may not have thought about: #1—Remove your address. First of all, space is on your resume is at a premium. Second, don’t allow anybody to use your physical address as a disqualifier before they even see what you have to offer. (This does happen.) #2—Add a link to your LinkedIn profile (and other appropriate social media sites). Never, ever include Facebook. It doesn’t matter how “good” you are on that platform. However, Twitter, Instagram, and others might be okay if they somehow relate to the position for which you’re applying. #3—Use a custom LinkedIn profile URL. A custom URL is shorter, neater, and cleaner. Fortunately, LinkedIn provides instructions for creating one, and you can assess them by clicking here. #4—Remove “Career Objective” and replace it with a qualifications section. This switches the focus from what you want to what you can provide. And let’s face it . . . employers care first and foremost about what you can provide in the way of qualifications, skills, and experience. #5—Cut down your bullet points per position. How many is too many? No more than six or seven, but five or less would be even better. Try to wow them with quality and not woo them with quantity. #6—Make sure all numbers are in numerical form. Forget the grammar rules for a moment. (Can anybody keep those straight, anyway?) Change all numbers from written form to numerical. You’ll save space, and numbers are more noticeable. #7—Abandon the orphan words. Get rid of all single words left on a line by themselves. Use your rewording skills—or somebody else’s—to eliminate those words, thus saving even more space and making the resume look cleaner. #8—Use a cloud generator to identify additional changes. How does this work? You put your resume in the generator, and it tells you which keywords you’re emphasizing. Click here for more information about how you can use cloud generators. #9—Make changes “above the fold.” This means the top third of your resume, the part that hiring managers will see first. It HAS to grab their attention, so make sure that it will compel them to read more about you. #10—Save your resume as a PDF. Regardless of the format in which you created it, ultimately save it as a PDF. The last thing you want is for the hiring manager to open your resume and have it “blow open” because of formatting issues. That’s not a good first impression. Comments are closed.
|
