Picture this – you are a copywriter. You have a Bachelors degree in Arts and a professional degree in copywriting from one of the best institutions in the world. You also have six years of intimidating experience in copywriting and your ad copies have done extremely well for the concerned clients. One fine day, you hear about your dream job from a colleague and apply for the same. Months later, you realize that something went wrong and the company never even bothered calling you for the interview. Well, if you can relate to this predicament or even something close to it, you probably only have your resume to blame. Most people, even the ones who are extremely career conscious, find it tough to churn out a perfect resume, because they’re simply unaware on how to. This is exactly why it is so important to gather together information on putting together a perfect resume. Remember, it is your resume that gets you called for an interview and it is the interview that helps you bag the job. So, in a way, your resume is a stepping stone to your success. Read on to discover extremely useful tips that will help you write out a perfect resume.
Tips On Writing A Resume
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Market yourself with your words. This is the first and foremost thing to do when putting together a resume. Think of your resume as an ad copy and yourself the product the same is trying to sell.
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Identify the purpose of your resume. Are you preparing one to get an entry-level job or a senior position? Once you’ve identified the purpose of your resume, proceed to customize it accordingly. Remember, the objective of preparing a resume is to get called for an interview. Your resume is not the ideal one, if it fails to do this.
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Use the right keywords. Using the right keywords will help your resume get past a resume scanning software program or a resume scanning HR executive. Here, only keywords are hunted for. Utilizing well the right keywords will only help advance your chances of landing you dream job. Check the job description to zero in on the right keywords.
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Use bullet points. Follow this tip wherever or everywhere possible. Bullet points make it easy for a potential employee to go through your resume. Remember, HR executives are busy people and looking through a thousand resumes makes it that much tougher for them to digest the information. This is exactly why showcasing information in the best possible manner is advisable.
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Proofread your resume. Most people fail to do this, but when you proofread your resume, you are only going to end up eliminating typos and grammatical errors, thus giving your resume much needed finesses.
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Prioritize! Here it’s all about showcasing first things first. Deciding on the importance of your information is up to you, but just remember to place what you consider most important first.
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Not more than three fonts when preparing resumes. This is generally considered the rule of thumb when deciding on the number of fonts to be used on your resume. As far as the size of your font goes, ‘12’ is your safest bet. Anything smaller or bigger is okay, but will not fetch you a lot of marks from the person who’s viewing your resume. ‘Times New Roman’ and ‘Arial’ in the size of 12, make for good font choices.
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Maintain a resume format that does justice to your talents, expertise, experience, and education.
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Say no to negativity. Do not include information that shows you in bad light. This will definitely not do you any good. Your resume should only highlight your strengths. Your weaknesses and shortcomings are for you to know and for your potential employer to find out.
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Do not include your picture in your resume. As unintelligent as it’s going to sound, there have been instances of people including their photos in their resume. This will make your resume look unprofessional and send your chances of landing the job down the drain.
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Do not use long sentences! The same applies for the usage of unfamiliar words, slang, and jargon. You may think using ‘big’ words or long sentences makes your resume look unprofessional, but in reality, the exact opposite is true.
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List out your achievements, instead of responsibilities. It always makes for better sense to focus on your achievements instead of your responsibilities. A potential employer is that much more interested in knowing what you have achieved instead of what you have been responsible for.
