Five ways to dramatically improve your resume
If you haven't dusted off your resume in a while, it might be time to evaluate how well it sells your skills and potential. Hopefully by now you have eliminated meaningless expressions from your CVand fixed the 10 most common resume errors. Here are five more important resume tips:
Make terminology line up with the industry you're targeting. Many people fall into the trap of filling their resume with buzzwords and phrases that resonate with the company they're currently working for, forgetting that every business develops its own lingo. You'll want to include terms, phrases, and expressions that are general to your industry and can be picked up in automated keyword searches.
Don't overlook obvious responsibilities. Yes, you're a senior manager or a principal content architect or some other impressive sounding professional. But when HR or the hiring manager scans your resume looking for a fit, it can help to see details listed that demonstrate the nuts and bolts of what you do -- supervision, budgeting, public speaking, and so on.
Supply financial context. Everyone likes numbers. Especially when those numbers represent the impact you've actually had on the business. Always try to add numbers that speak to millions of dollars in sales, number of employees affected, and other meaningful, easily compared statistics.
Highlight the most critical accomplishments. Draw attention to the truly awesome accomplishments by culling them into a bulleted list, tasteful use of formatting light bold headings, and so on. Be sure that your big wins are listed distinctly from your usual duties.
Polish and improve readability. Even if you're not a strong writer, you need to take the time to create a resume that sings. I don't mean including goofy, clichéd prose or other things that turn off HR and hiring managers. Your CV should be free of typos; use proper grammar; not use random capitalization ("Attached you will find my Resume"). Format the document for readability and scanability. Remember -- most hiring managers won't spend more than 30 seconds reading it, no matter how long or short it happens to be. [via WiseBread]
More on MoneyWatch:
10 Resume Errors That Will Land You in the Trash
5 Things You Should Never Say in a Job Interview
5 More Things That are Wrong with Your Resume (and How to Fix Them)
5 steps to a killer cover letter
