What makes your resume stand out?

Applying for a job is a tedious job. And as the days go by, it becomes 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, they just browse through the large heap and pick the ones they FEEL are alright – they don’t KNOW yet.

So, what do you do?

You let them KNOW. 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

A recruiter needs some specific talents in the candidate they wish to hire. And they put all those in their advertisement. These are the important terms or keywords that they have in their advert. If these keywords match, they select your resume, and you go to the next stage of the interview.

Therefore, it becomes our duty to give them what they need. So what do we do?

Be simple and clean

Keep the fonts simple. I prefer the Arial for sans serif, and Times New Roman for serif fonts. Never use different kinds of fonts – stick to just one.

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.

Give figures if you can.

They make the resume readable and quick to understand. For instance, give the number of years experience, the sales in Rupees that you generated, and so on.

Your career objective

This is an 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:

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

 – High school English teacher

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 skill

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.

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 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.

How to state your STRENGTHS

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 to know more.

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!