Tips for Resume Writing from Google

Rebecca, a recruiter at Google, and Kendall, a software engineer, are sharing general resume tips, and specific advice for business resumes and engineering and technical resumes.

This 8 minutes video contains a lot of tips on how to write a resume. By the way, if you are not sure what is the difference between as CV and a resume, please check out our previous post 'resume versus cv, what is the difference'.



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How to make your cover letter sparkle

As you are aware, the purpose of cover letters is to make recruiters want to read your Curriculum Vitae (CV). Every cover letter you write should be unique and tailored to each job. It may take more time, but the recruiters will be impressed by the originality of your application.

If you always use the same wording in your cover letter, mistakes are going to happen. There is nothing worse than referring to the wrong company in your application. Be yourself and stand out, but keep your tone professional.

Target keywords from the advertisement

Match your capabilities to two or three key criteria mentioned in the job advertisement. Give specific examples of how your experience matches the company's objectives. Keep it concise and direct their attention to your CV.

Clearly state why they should hire YOU

Before you start your application, your research skills will be invaluable and set you apart from other job seekers. You need to understand the company, industry trends and workplace culture to demonstrate your interest and enthusiasm for the job. Explain how your skills and experience will help the organisation's goals.

Use the recruiter's name in your salutation

A recruiter hates to see a cover letter which starts with "Dear Sir/Madam" or "To Whom it May Concern". This simply tells them you have not done any research on their company. If you don't have a name, be proactive and phone the company to ask who you should address your cover letter to 

Show an original ending

Once you have written an amazing cover letter, you need an original ending. Don't use "Thank you for your time in reading my application". This will guarantee your application ending up in the bin. Instead aim to remain professional, polite and courteous. Save the thank you for when you get an interview. Demonstrate you are proactive and use an alternative ending such as; "I'll be in touch next week to discuss how my skills will benefit your company". 

If you need assistance with writing a great cover letter, give Loft Resumes a call for our expert advice on professional writing services
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Creating a unique resume for a creative job

If you are applying for a job that requires a lot of creativity, such as a graphic designer or marketing guru, then your resume needs to stand out. Your resume is the first impression your potential new employer has of you, so here are a few tips to make it memorable. 

Match the job to the resume

If you're applying for a marketing job with a company in a certain industry, it can be fun to take one of the common pieces of material from that industry, such as a food label, and modify it to make a fun resume. You can also play with the colour and text size on the resume in order to emphasise different parts of your experience and qualifications. 

Show you can do the job

While a great resume is a good start in highlighting your creative skills, be sure to show some of your other creative work as well. This could include referencing successful or notable campaigns you have worked on or industry awards you have won. It can be useful for some creative people such as writers to link to published work or their personal website. You can then showcase a wider selection of work which can be tricky to encapsulate in a single document such as a resume. 

Make sure it's clear though! 

While creating a distinctive resume is a great move, it's also important to make sure that it's readable. While it can be fun to add additional aspects such as making a 3D resume or using unique colour effects, resumes often need to be scanned or photographed to distribute to different people in the organisation. There is no point creating a great resume that only makes an impression on the person who opens the mail and not on the person making the hiring decision! 

If you are looking for feedback on your resume before it hits the hiring desk, it can be a great idea to get a professional resume review from a service that specialises in these design services. They can help you to refine your resume in a way that will enhance your chances of landing your dream job.
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Automated tracking systems can reject your resume before it even reaches a real person

Organisations and recruitment agencies are becoming more reliant on technology, with many opting to use an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) to automate the recruitment process and get the best employee for their needs. According to a <a href="">recent article in PC World</a>, as much as 75% of talent management is now reliant on ATS technology.

An ATS scans for certain keywords and compliance requirements and will accept or reject applications accordingly. Your resume doesn’t only need to showcase your skills and experience, it must match the electronically programmed criteria to avoid being put on the reject pile. 

You may well be considered the perfect candidate for the job if a real person was reading your resume, but even one minor mistake can have you rejected by a piece of software. 

What can you do to avoid rejection?

The basic requirements of a good resume are an accurate and concise summary of your skills, employment history, experience, qualities, achievements and references. But resumes specifically tailored to relate to the selection criteria and addressing all employer requirements as stipulated in the job ad and position description will really stand out. Be sure to think like both an ATS and a human and include all relevant job-specific keywords throughout your document. 

It's also important to choose a resume design that is suited to the position. The layout of your resume should be well structured, with fonts, dates, titles etc consistently formatted and relevant to the company and job title you're applying to. If you're looking for a technical position in an established firm, then a standard two-page CV format with serif font may be expected. If you're applying for a more modern role within a digital marketing start-up, for instance, a colourful, eye-catching one-page resume with sans-serif font might be best. Spelling mistakes can also be costly, so be sure to edit thoroughly and ideally have someone else check before sending. Follow any directions and submit your resume and cover letter in the requested file format, whether Rich Text or PDF. 

Investing in professional help

Your resume is your best chance at landing an interview. It's where you get to highlight your unique ‘fit’ for the advertised position and stand out above the crowd.

This is one of the most important documents you will ever create, which is why many applicants now consider it a worthwhile investment to get a professional resume writing service to help put together a resume that tells their story, communicates their history, reveals their accomplishments and makes it more likely to progress to the interview stage.

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Top 3 Benefits of Resume Writing Services

Whether you are a fresh graduate or not, finding a job is a tiring and frustrating process. First, you find a job you are interested in, then you submit your resume, and then the wait begins. It may seem like a rare thing, but there are job seekers who never get a call at all. If you are one of them, you know that something is wrong. Since the hiring manager has not laid eyes on you yet, your resume may just not be eligible or interesting enough to catch their attention. The solution? Resume writing services. Although this is a paid service, it is a worthwhile investment that will help jump-start your career. 

Enhances the Look of the Resume

Remember how resumes looked way back when? It was a simple, black and white document with a boring list of generic information about you and your career. Keep up with the trend of unique and customized resumes. A professional resume writer can customize one for you, designing it to be more relevant to the type of industry you are in, the skills you have, or the job you are applying for. A unique but relevant concept with color and an interesting layout will definitely make your resume stand out in a pile of hopefuls.

Highlights the Right Credentials

If you are applying for a marketing position, for example, the resume writing service will optimize your resume to highlight the skills needed for that role. A job description includes the qualification the hiring manager is looking for and, if those are found in your resume, you are more likely to get a call.

Unique Wording that Makes an Impact

Some job seekers find sample resumes online and just tweak them a bit to include their personal and professional information. Hiring managers will immediately spot common words used in resumes, especially in the professional summary section. A professional writing service uses unique wording that is appropriate for the job you are vying for.

If your resume looks well-written and carefully crafted, the hiring manager will get an impression that you are truly willing to exert enough effort to be considered for the position. This is a good quality that they could surely use in their company. Invest in resume writing services. The confidence you develop and the opportunities you get will be all worth it.
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A brief history of resume writing

Resumes have been a part of working culture for as long as many of you reading this have been born. A well-written resume is the difference between getting hired by your dream company, or being rejected and being forced back into the soul-sucking procedure of job hunting once again. 

First off, at one point in time, the CV and the resume were two different entities. With the resume being the simple practice we see today, and the CV consisting of multiple pages of information pertaining to the potential employee. Obviously, today the classic version of the CV has ceased to exist with it being impossible to screen hundred's of applicants at once all providing 20-page essays to employers.

It is difficult to pinpoint who actually created the idea of a resume and is usually credited towards Leonardo Da Vinci, proposing the idea it was started in France, but you can assume it was created as a necessity in order to weed the bad from good for potential employers. Furthermore, resume is a word taken from the French Language and means "to summarize".

Nonetheless, the resume has had a number of pioneers such as Ralph Agas who introduced the idea to 1500's England, and forward into the future. The modern resume began gaining traction during the 1930's and has continued to evolve with it culminating through to the age of computers, wherein which we can now view resumes online through digital means.

Simply, resumes nowadays are used to help organise potential employees, especially when a large amount of them have applied at once. Resumes are glanced over for a very short period of time (10-15 seconds even) and either given a simple yes or no. Those who manage to go through are then usually looked at more intensively at a later time. 

A wise man once said, "First impressions are everything". This statement could not be truer and applies to both social and working cultures. Hopefully, the previous points stated can help you understand on a deeper than surface level why resumes are so important to employers.

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Do I need to create separate resumes for different jobs?

Most of us tend to take a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach to our resume, utilizing a consistent template and content for all our job applications. However, if you are eyeing a variety of positions, or are actively considering a change in career direction, then this approach might not be the most beneficial for you. Here are some reasons why having separate resumes for different jobs can significantly improve your chances of getting hired!

Demonstrate your versatility

There may be times when you will find yourself in the position of wishing to apply for positions to advance your career within your present employment. Having resumes uniquely tailored for each position demonstrates your versatility and willingness to elucidate your strengths and how they apply to a specific new role.

Accentuate the positive!

Different jobs have distinct needs. By having separate resumes, you can accentuate the skills, talents, training and work experience that apply most relevantly to your desired position.

Resume design

The design and layout of a resume has been proven to have a massive impact in terms of creating a positive first impression for recruiters and potential employers. A ‘one-size-fits-all’ resume merely adds or subtracts information that may be important or not so important to the newly desired position. When you take the time to customize a resume for each individual job, you also give yourself the opportunity to appropriately contextualize the other critical elements of your resume (e.g., color, graphics, overall design).

Discover your own potential

In contrast to the ‘one-size-fits-all’ resume, customizing a resume for each and every job allows you to learn more about yourself, as well as possibly untapped potential lurking within your skill set. The more time we spend with our resume, categorizing our work experience, training, and personal attributes, the more we illuminate and gain clarity, regarding our individual passions and career goals. It could very well provide the impetus for a radical change of direction. You might find yourself looking back and thinking: ‘Who would have ever thought that the examination of something as simple as my resume could have acted as the catalyst for a call to adventure?’

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3 big red flags recruiters watch out for

A recruiter’s job is not just to match the best available candidate for the position, but also to minimise potential risks for the company. They are trained to watch out for red flags throughout the recruitment process. If you’re on the hunt for your next role, make sure you avoid these red flags at all costs. 

1. Your resume doesn’t match the job requirements

When a job description is created by a company, it almost always includes a list of requirements desired by the person to fill the position. This may include having a minimum number of years in the industry or having experience using a particular CRM software. From a recruiter’s perspective, they will only bring in candidates for an interview that match most of the requirements, if not all. When reviewing a job posting that you want to apply for, make sure you include details of how you fulfil each requirement in both your resume and cover letter. 

2. Your online presence does not match your resume

Remember that recruiters are like the company’s FBI agent. A big part of their role is to investigate the candidate’s professional background and check that it is consistent offline and online. Make sure that your online presence, like on LinkedIn and social media, is consistent with your resume. Want to improve your LinkedIn profile? Read four hacks for improving your Linkedin summary.

3. Unexplained or inconsistent gaps in your career

You want to make your resume and CV as seamless as possible, and this means making sure your timeline is correct and accounted for. A recruiter wants to know that you were working consistently with minimal gaps in your career. Of course, they will understand that we all take time off work once in a while like taking a gap year after graduating or a career break after being in the industry for a few years. But always make sure you address these gaps with a small note that states why you took time off work. Don't keep them guessing. 

As you delve into the recruitment process, do your best to avoid making these three red flag mistakes. Don’t give a reason for the recruiter to dismiss your application.

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