Make Your Resume Stand Out With These Simple Tweaks

If you are a young professional who already has a job (or is looking for a job) chances are you already have a resume. Chances are you have put a lot of thought into it and spent quite some time crafting it. And chances are you haven’t gotten any interview invitations…

A well-written and up-to-date resume is arguably the most important first step to landing that perfect job you’ve always dreamt about. Yet, a great resume is not easy to craft.

I have recently gotten a chance to speak to a very experienced HR representative. He has worked for a Fortune 100 company for many years. Needless to say, he has tons of experience reading through all sorts of resumes and knows what works and what doesn’t. I got quite a lot of insight from my discussion with him.

Using the tips he gave me, I was able to improve my own resume (that I, quite frankly, thought to be perfect) fairly quickly. I thought I’d be a good Samaritan and share with you some of the secrets he shared with me;) Don’t worry, you won’t have to re-write your existing resume that you worked so hard on. All you have to do is take it, read it over very carefully one more time and answer the following questions.

Is everything you wrote on your resume true?

Always make sure that whatever you say on your resume is 100% true. Be certain that you can, if asked, speak to everything you’ve written. Don’t make things up and don’t exaggerate to make yourself look better than you are. A dishonest resume may get you an interview, but a skilled interviewer will instantly know what questions to ask to test your knowledge. And if you aren’t able to answer their questions — consider yourself instantly discredited. That’s not the impression you want to make on your potential employer.

My first ever job interview at a Fortune 500 company barely took up a half of a page and consisted mainly of student projects. I wasn’t putting my hopes up and didn’t have high expectations of the outcome. I decided to be honest about what I do and what I don’t know. My interviewer appreciated the honesty. She told me that it was ok that I didn’t have all the necessary skills for the job and that what was important is that I had integrity and that I was willing to learn. I got the job.

Are you using keywords in the summary?

Make your resume strategic. Decide what exactly it is you want to do and what kind of company you want to work for. Then go on job searching websites and see what keywords employers use in their job postings for the position you are looking for. Make a list of those keywords in order of frequency. Then re-write the summary of your resume using the keywords. Be careful not make it sound robotic. Use just enough keywords to make the text sound natural and cohesive.

Are you repeating the same keywords in the “Experience” section?

Keep in mind that if you are applying for a position at a bigger company, your resume is first scanned by some sort of HR software and only after — if enough keywords were detected — it ends up on the table of the HR specialist.

Your resume has a higher chance to be noticed if you repeat some of the keywords you used in the summary in your “Experience” section. Repeat as many of the keywords as you can being careful about keeping your resume sound cohesive, coherent and natural.

Are you highlighting your latest/most important job?

You shouldn’t lie on your resume but you shouldn’t sell yourself short either. Pick the most important job/project you’ve worked on and find a logical way to move it to the top of your resume. It should ideally be the most recent thing you’ve done, but if not — that’s ok too. More often than not your future employer will quickly scan your earliest jobs and pay the most attention to the job positioned at the top. Thus, your main goal is to showcase the most impressive position you have had, big things you have accomplished, closer to the top of your resume.

So, don’t waste the valuable real estate on your resume (or your not less valuable time) describing in detail the position you had fifteen years ago. Instead, pay extra attention to the most recent one and make it count.

Do you show what challenges you had and how you contributed to solving them?

Now, it’s time to reorganize your “Experience” section. It’s not enough to just describe in a single paragraph what your responsibilities at any particular job were. What is important is to show to your potential employer what problems you solved, how you did it, and how what you did helped the company. Give a short description of your general responsibilities in a short paragraph. Then think back on what exactly you have done, what problems encountered, what issues you had to deal with. Think of your specific accomplishments and list them in the form of a bulleted list.

You can say something like: “Helped establish a new approach to collaboration between design and development teams which resulted in increased productivity” or “Incorporated InVision App into the design process as a more modern and effective prototyping and collaboration tool, significantly shortening time spent on projects”. Ideally, you would be able to give some numbers here: conversion rate improved, number of users acquired, money earned etc. However, if the exact numbers are hard to figure out, you can still point our how the company benefited from your actions.

This way of presenting your experience gives your potential employer a clear picture of how you may help their company if they end up hiring you.

Is your resume over-designed?

The way your resume should be designed highly depends on what kind of company you are applying to. If you are seeking a position of a graphic designer at a creative agency — go ahead and design the heck out of your resume. They’ll probably appreciate your innovative approach, beautiful layout, thought-through typography and strategic choice of colors.

For the rest of the folks out there (especially if you are applying for a position at a bigger company), stick to a nicely structured classic layout with a minimal use of colors. Again, your resume will most likely be scanned by software before it is seen by an HR representative. You don’t want the software to accidentally miss it because it wasn’t able to read the format.

If in doubt, just prepare two versions of your resume: a classic and a designed one. You can officially submit the latter and email the former directly to the hiring manager or bring it with you to the interview.

Are there any grammatical/spelling mistakes?

This is an important one. In fact a friend of mine, who used to be an executive at Verizon Wireless, told me once, that whenever he received a resume for consideration, the first thing he would do was scan through the resume looking for grammatical or spelling mistakes. If he found any — he wouldn’t even give that applicant a chance.

Proofread your resume after you’ve written it. Didn’t see any mistakes? Take a break and read it again. I promise you you will find something. Ask someone else to look it over just in case. They may pay attention to something that you overlooked.

Are you protecting your privacy?

Resumes used to contain a lot of personal information such as, for instance, your address and phone number. There is a lot of concern regarding our privacy nowadays. Employers don’t expect to see your personal information anymore. It’s enough to add your email address and a link to your LinkedIn profile. If you are a designer — feel free to add a link to your portfolio. If you are a developer — add your GitHub link.

Conclusion

So, make sure you’ve got it all right:

If asked to, you can confidently speak to everything you put on your resume.

You are using all the appropriate keywords that are associated with your dream job.

You are repeating the main keywords a few times.

Your most impressive project is at the top part of the resume and is described in detail.

You show what specific challenges you’ve had and how you helped solve them.

You resume is well structured, visually appealing but not over-designed.

You proofread your resume carefully for all the grammatical and spelling mistakes.

There is no sensitive personal information on your resume.

Did you put a check mark next to every statement above? Great. Then you are on the right path. Yes, there is always room for even more improvement, but these small changes can quickly help you tweak your resume and make it more professional. And a more professional resume means more interviews and better jobs.

Happy job hunt!