10 Tips for Crafting the Perfect Resume
Today’s job market – especially in fields like finance, computer science, sales, IT work etc. – is more competitive than ever before.
Just trying to get your foot in the door can feel like an uphill battle, let alone putting together a picture-perfect resume that:
- Immediately separates you from the rest of the potential applicants
- Positions you as the perfect person to fill the open position and
- Helps “prime the pump” for career advancement moving forward
So we have put together this detailed guide to help you craft the perfect resume!
Below we cover (almost) everything you need to know about building the perfect resume from the ground up.
We highlight the inside information you’re not going to find anywhere else. Information that immediately gives you a competitive advantage in this tight job market, and helps you establish yourself as the right person for the job.
We also share why it’s smart to consider hiring professional resume writers with the skills and experience to handle the “heavy lifting” for you.
But more on that in just a little bit.
Let’s dig into the 10 tips you need for crafting the perfect resume today!
Pay Attention to the Key Words and Phrases in the Job Posting
Before you start writing anything, it’s important to dig into the job posting and description to better understand EXACTLY what interviewers and the people hiring for the position are looking for.
Far too many people go into the resume writing process wanting to convey information that they think is important or impactful when in fact it isn’t to that particular job.
They build resumes that are almost totally self-focused, describing themselves, their experience, and their accomplishments in great detail but never really explaining why or how they bring a lot of value to the table for this specific position.
Don’t make that same mistake.
Dig below the surface of what a job posting or description is sharing, look for important phrases, keywords, and other clues to what the interviewer or individuals responsible for hiring decisions are really after.
Build your resume around that kind of “inside information” and you’ll have a significant advantage over the rest of the pack.
Pull Up Great Resumes from Your Industry
The next piece of the puzzle is the tremendous value in “swiping” from previously successful resumes, especially those that come from people in your industry.
The internet is filled with great resumes that land people positions they may not have been able to secure otherwise – and you will want to study and learn from them.
Consider the structure of those resumes (how they were set up), you’ll want to look at the headlines and how they described each section. Also, see how they were able to prove themselves and their claims throughout the resume.
There’s no reason to try and reinvent the wheel when there are so many great examples of top-tier resumes you can mimic.
One important point to remember – NEVER plagiarize or copy resumes word for word.
You’re looking to see what made these resumes successful and finding ways to emulate that success. Use your own experiences, your own phraseology, and your own personality to create a winning resume for yourself.
Sketch Out the Major Points You Want to Hit
Outlines can be enormously beneficial, especially for folks that don’t spend a lot of time working on resumes or writing in general.
Jumping headfirst into your resume without a clear idea of what you are trying to convey, or what the most important parts of your resume to emphasize are, is like jumping out of an airplane without a parachute.
Instead, sit down and sketch out the major points you want to hit – provided that they are relevant to the information you’ve uncovered by painstakingly researching the job description or job posting.
Remember, everything has to cohesively connect and answer the core question the reader will have in the back of their mind as soon as they read your resume:
“What makes you the right person for this job?”
Build your case in broad strokes and you’ll have your outline!
Construct Your Pitch
Now that you have a general idea of what you’re trying to convey it’s time to formulate your “pitch”. Find a way to structure all the content you are going to include so that it makes an impact.
A lot of people fall into the trap of finding run-of-the-mill online resume templates that are broken down like this:
- Name and Contact Information
- Objective
- Qualifications
- Educational Experience
- Professional Experience
While a structure like that definitely gets your information across, it will not stand out as unique since many resumes look similar and will not attract the interest of the reader.
Instead, find a way to structure what you want to share as though you were having a conversation. That’ll change your perspective on structuring the resume and you’ll be able to separate yourself from the pack instantly, without having to do too much extra work.
Front-Load Your Most Relevant Accomplishments
Regardless of how else you structure your resume, it’s a good idea to make sure that you frontload your most relevant accomplishments.
This helps take advantage of the psychological principles of Primacy and Recency.
Human beings have a tendency to remember the first and last bits of information they read.
You want to use this to improve the overall effectiveness of your resume to be sure. It’s also just generally a good idea to frontload your resume with as much value as possible to separate yourself from other applicants.
It’s important to remember that these individuals will be reading many resumes perhaps hundreds over the course of the job opening.
They are (generally) going to skim more than anything else, glancing at the highlights whenever possible. If they don’t see you as unique out of the gate they might throw you in the file to be ignored.
Don’t let that happen.
Always frontload your most impactful accomplishments that are relevant to the position and then save another impactful or relevant component that you used to close out your resume.
Keep Style Choices Simple and Straightforward
There’s no shortage of beautiful resumes online. Resumes that look like they were designed by Apple, with very unique non-traditional formats that are designed to capture attention and convey creativity right out of the gate.
You can definitely go down that road if you think it will have the positive impact you are looking for, or if the position you are after is going to rely on creativity or imagination.
If, on the other hand, you’re not able to come up with a real door kicker of a resume it’s not a bad idea to go with a very simple, straightforward, well optimized resume design instead.
Keep things very clean with one or two (at most) different font choices – one for your headlines and one for your body copy.
Make sure that everything has a consistent structure, the font sizes are the same for each related element. Also, try to keep splashes of color limited only to areas of your resume that you want to draw attention to.
Yes, as long as you are using color sparingly – usually yellow, red, orange, or green – you can get away without having a purely black-and-white resume.
Just don’t color code the whole thing. You’ll end up with a technicolor rainbow that only frustrates the reader getting you sent to the “ignore” pile.
Quantify and Expand When Possible
Whenever you describe something that you’ve done or something you’ve accomplished (especially when it is relevant to the open position you are after) you want to quantify and expound on that as much as possible.
For example, someone applying for a sales position doesn’t want to say:
“Grew sales dramatically during my time at XYZ Widget”
… But will instead want to say something like:
“I was responsible for 503% growth in front-end sales between 2016 and 2018 while working at XYZ Widget”
The more concrete you can make your accomplishments the more tangible and real they are going to feel to the person reading your resume.
Someone that says they are really good at sales will always going to lose to the one that shows the results of their sales skills.
Regardless of your industry, there’s always an opportunity to expand and quantify exactly what you’ve accomplished. Make sure that you really take the time to prove what you’ve done before you submit your resume!
Consider Using Testimonials
This is a really neat little “insider secret” that accomplished resume writers understand and it’s something that you’ll want to do whenever possible, Testimonials. They can immediately separate you from the rest of the applicant pool.
Everything you say in your resume is going to be looked at from the perspective of trying to impress the person hiring for an open position because you really want it.
This perspective is understood by the people that are reading your resume and interviewing for the position, and it’s going to (even if only subconsciously) cause them to be at least a little bit skeptical about the claims being made by you.
The moment that you start introducing testimonials, however, is the moment that you really start to prove your case. It shows that it’s not just you promising the moon and stars when it comes to what you’re capable of – but other people that have been beneficially impacted by your skills and ability.
That’s a game-changer.
Best of all, you don’t need tons of testimonials or super lengthy ones. Sprinkle some in a Testimonials section near the end and you’ll improve your odds of being hired.
Proofread – And Then Do It Again!
Taking the time to think, outline, and write out a world-class resume is going to involve quite a bit of mental heavy lifting, as well as no small amount of proofreading and editing.
Too often people take more of a “one and done” approach to writing a resume, never really considering it as anything more than an oversized business card when nothing could be further from the truth.
For a lot of people, this is the only opportunity you’ll have to get your foot in the door at a dream company or to start off your career on the right foot.
That’s not something you can squander.
Take the time to carefully write out your resume but also take the time to proofread, edit, review, set aside for a couple of days, and come back and proofread it all over again.
You’ll be glad you did.
Hire Professionals to Help You Really Polish Your Resume
At the end of the day, though, it may be worthwhile simply outsourcing the creation of a picture-perfect resume to experts that know what they are doing. People that craft and deliver top-tier, successful resumes every day.
The average person may write a resume a handful of times in their life – if that. If you only tied your shoes a handful of times in your life would you be any good at it? If you only tried to roast chicken a handful of times in your life would you be any good at it?
Would you trust a surgeon that only had a couple of procedures under their belt over the last 20 years? Probably not.
By leaning on professional resume writers you’re able to speed up the process significantly. Getting a polished, tight, and very impactful resume – filled with professionally written insights can help you significantly in your job search.
Working with the right people on this will unlock doors for your career that might have stayed permanently shut otherwise.