Is Your Resume Helping You Get That Interview?
Simran Narwani, Content Editor @ Media x Women
Your resume should reflect the job role
Hiring managers often don’t read through your resume fully and instead glance through looking at key words and spotting phrases in your resume that match the job. So be conscious of the structure of your resume and ensure the most relevant skills and achievements are highlighted higher in the list and easier for the hiring manager to spot. Also many recruiters use applicant tracking softwares(ATS) that scan through applications looking for the right phrases that match the job role. Focus on the company's culture and try to understand what the hiring manager is looking for.
Show your success
Make a list of all the accomplishments you’ve made in your job roles, or duties that you carried out then convert these sentences into detailed descriptions of situations where you excelled in this particular area. You want to show how you used your skills to improve the job, so be sure you include situations that reflect your accomplishments. Be as specific as you can by using numbers and data to add more accountability behind your success.
Include your LinkedIn profile
Job recruiters search for your online presence before they decide to interview you. To save them time, include the link to your LinkedIn profile in your resume (Which also means that your Linkedin profile needs to reflect your professional achievements and portray the skills you are bringing to the job).
Powerful words and active verbs
Start each bullet point under your job experience with a powerful verb, but ensure those verbs are not overused in your resume. Also avoid using passive voice, for example
Passive voice: “The project was completed by Sarah”
Active voice: “Sarah completed the project”
This makes it easier to read your resume as it is precise and detailed. Identifying the passive and active voice can be tricky but know that passive voice is when the subject is acted on by the verb whereas in active voice the subject performs the verb.
Structure and Visual Appeal
Because many resumes get passed through the Applicant tracking system (which can’t recognize graphs and star rankings), it’s harder for these systems to attract overly creative and visual resumes. So, it’s best to focus on organization, legibility and language. Ensure that even the language in your resume is effectively communicating your abilities. Pay attention to detail like dates and use of space. Place experience and education in chronological order and use color, font and lines to make it visually clearer to understand and helps it stand out.