Monday, August 20, 2018

3 Resume Writing Tips

Understand what makes a good advertisement cause a reader to take action.

A resume is the starting point of job searching. All too often the resume causes rejection or non-response, making it the ending point of the search as well. Writing skill is certainly critical but it's not the only consideration for creating a resume that postures the candidate in a professional way. Three gross mistakes can jeopardize an otherwise excellent job candidate.

Applicant Tracking System (ATS) software may reject you regardless of your qualifications:
How your resume is prepared is often the cause of rejection by ATS before a human ever sees it.

It's not just what is written, but how it is created. There are over 40 resume attributes that are potential ATS issues. One example: Don't use tables; ATS may not read information contained in tables.

People will often reject you and move on to the next resume if your resume is difficult to read quickly:
On the first pass most people really do not actually read resumes!

At best people scan very quickly looking for keywords and data they are interested in. The first 5 seconds are critical. In that brief time they look at your name, contact information, personal brand, skills, and the results of your work. Sometimes who you have worked for is important to them, but not always.

Resumes are merely advertisements. If they find nothing that interests them they are likely to reject you without further review. It's usually a final, binary decision because there are simply too many other resumes to read. 

Further scanning, perhaps 25 more seconds, occurs only for the few people who pass the initial review. A more detailed review by a human occurs only for the top candidates. Even those companies who do not use ATS may reject or fail to respond if a human reader is unable to quickly find points of interest.

To be effective resumes must address the specific needs of the hiring manager:
Edit your resume to be responsive to the critical needs of each job. If you don't it is certain some of your competition will.

One resume usually does not fit all jobs. Tailoring resumes to be responsive to each hiring manager is challenging and intensive work, but necessary for success. 

These are just a few considerations for writing an effective resume. If you use a resume writer make certain he or she is a good writer, understands what causes all possible problems for ATS (not just the need for keywords), and understands advertising.  

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