Getting a job is a tedious job. And as the days go by, it gets even more tedious because of the increasing competition.

Also, what is worse, the recruiter or hiring manager doesn’t have all the time in the world to go through your resume word by word to see if you meet their requirements.

So, does it boil down to just plain luck? NO, IT DOESN’T! Then what do you do?

You tell your story that highlights your achievements. Note the word – achievements.

Note, the recruiter wants just a resume, not your entire CV. This means, your resume has to be company and job-specific. So, what are some of the things we need to keep in mind while drafting our resume?

The job advertisement

The recruiter has this job. And he has the skills the candidate should have. These together form the set of keywords that he’s going to look for in your resume. So, give him these keywords. If these keywords match, they select your resume, and you go to the next stage of the interview.

Note, the job of the resume is to just get you the interview call – proverbial the foot in the door. So, what do we do? There are 5 things we can follow to get your foot in that door.

1. Be simple and clean

Keep the fonts simple. I prefer the Arial for sans serif, and Times New Roman for serif fonts. Remember 2 things:

• Never use different kinds of fonts – stick to just one
• Never use fancy fonts

Then use headings or titles for each information element. They should pop out the moment anyone looks at the resume.

Then, hyperlink it to your LinkedIn profile. This makes it easy for the recruiter to read it and saves a lot of space as well.

 

1. Give figures if you can. They make the resume readable and quick to understand. For instance, give the number of year’s experience, the sales in Rupees that you generated, and so on.
2. Your career objective is a very essential part of your resume. This is a bit confusing with conflicting opinions. So, let’s look at it in some detail:

Your career objective tells the recruiter the way you look at yourself and why you think you will fit the job. So, I believe that this Objective Statement should have around 4 components:

1. Your job title. This tells what kind of job you are doing right now

– High school English teacher

1. Your basic objective—what you are looking for. Keep it general –. You can also write the kind of job you ideally would like to do. For example:

…looking for a position for teaching English in a small independent school …

• What you are bringing in—your skills, abilities, experience, &c.
• …where I can apply my 3 years of post-qualification experience in teaching English communication skills

1. How you fit in—What’s in it for the company

…to support student growth, creativity, and success.

Be careful, though, to match your objective to the company’s job requirements.

1. Read up on the company’s culture. This will help you become one with them – be a part of the family already.

• The About Us page tells you a lot about this one. For example, if the page uses the first person “we” to talk about themselves, they are very informal.
• Another place to look for is the Twitter or Facebook pages. If the language is formal and uptight, using the third person “it”, you know you will get the snooty, snarky lot in there.
• Then the blog will also tell you a lot about the culture there.

1. When writing about your STRENGTHS, use real words, and not phony adjectives.

For instance, you don’t say you are METICULOUS. That simply tells them about YOU. And not about what you have DONE. Let me elaborate.

The dictionary tells that meticulous means

taking or showing extreme care about minute details; precise; thorough

Great! But, what does it mean for the company? How will the company benefit from hiring you? In other words, how do you fit in?

So, use real action words. With meticulous you could use words like:

Detected, Identified, Noticed, Resolved

Then tell them:

• what you did,
• what was the result of your action
• how the company benefitted in terms of rupees.

Give the rupee value if possible

But be careful not to compromise on the company’s secrets.

 

Watch our videos on resume power words here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1x6qFkUP3isyjczSkcCPw21bGZXLcGqh

 

 

Conclusion:

The most important point to remember is a resume is just your foot in the door to get you an interview.

It will not get you the job. You will need to go into the interview to SELL yourself. You need the interviewer to look at you and listen to you – and not read a piece of paper, which is what your resume is.

You go in there and tell them why you are the best – the one and only – what the company will gain if they hire you, and why it will be the company’s loss if they don’t hire you.

But that’s for another day.

All the best in your job hunt!