Recruiters do not spend too much time on a resume and just skim through the document. So, it is easy to conclude that a resume outline is the first thing that they notice.
So, the outline of your resume should be composed in a manner that allows recruiters to scan information easily. But, you need to understand that it’s not just recruiters that will check your resume.
5 Resume Writing Tips
Most organizations use software applications like applicant tracking systems to shortlist candidates relevant to the job profile. To pass this test, the outline is extremely important.
Let’s begin with a resume outline that will be ideal for your target profile and help you land a job in 2020.
The header
A resume header is composed of your name, contact details, profile title, and location. It is quite easy to write the header as it does not require much effort, but avoid adding irrelevant information here. For instance, adding personal details such as date of birth, marital status, and residential address is not ideal.
Also, avoid writing pointers such as “Resume” or “Curriculum Vitae” in the profile title. Your profile title should be in line with your current/last held job. But, you can optimize it as per the target profile.
Let’s say you are changing industries and you have a certification that is relevant to the target job. You can add that to your profile title. For example, Software Developer and Certified Data Scientist.
Professional summary
A professional summary should be composed of key achievements, domain expertise, and pointers related to the target profile. So, it is safe to say that this section is very important for your profile.
Recruiters skim through the resume to locate this section. Hence, it would be ideal to place this section at the top of the document and right below the header.
Formatting a summary is easy but you need to pick the information carefully as it does not go beyond 3-4 lines. So, you should go through the job description to identify important information and add it in the summary. Also, you need to make sure that it is written in paragraph form.
Here is an example of a professional summary:
“4+ years experienced Social Media Manager & Certified Digital Marketing professional with expertise in managing online social media channels to improve brand visibility. Adept at liaising with social media influencers to promote products and improving sales on online channels.”
Work experience
In this section, you need to include your job details and responsibilities. The idea is to showcase your domain expertise that can help improve your chances of landing the job.
It is the longest section of a resume, so it will decide what the layout of your resume maker will look like. That is why you need to compose this section properly.
Here is how you can format it:
- Work profiles: Write your work profiles in reverse chronological order as the idea is to write the recent profile/achievements first. Also, add your job title, location, company name & description, and time period.
- Frame points: Avoid long paragraphs and frame one-liner bullet points to write statements regarding your job responsibilities. Use power verbs such as overseeing, liaising to being these statements.
- Bucketing: It is a resume term for assigning relevant subheadings to 3-4 statements. For example, if you work as a digital marketing professional, then the subheadings can be “outreach and marketing campaign”, “social media marketing and brand awareness”, etc.
Education details
Adding education details is very important for your resume. But, it can be a requirement for the job you are targeting. Let’s say your target profile is “Data Scientist” and it requires you to have an engineering degree. For such instances, you need to compose an education section.
Here is how you can write this section:
“B. Tech in Chemical Engineering | Caltech University | Pasadena, California | Apr’ 16 – May ‘20”
Additional sections
Basically, the additional sections are for information that cannot be added to the education and professional experience section.
Here are the additional sections of a resume:
- Extra-curricular activities
- Volunteering
- Training
- Workshop
- Publications
- Languages
Depending on your target job, they can be extremely important for your resume. For example, students that do not have any professional experience will have to rely on extra-curricular and volunteering experience to showcase their skills.
So, prioritize what information is important for your resume that will help you land your dream job.
HussaiN is a full-time professional blogger from India. He is passionate about content writing, tech enthusiasts, and computer technologies. Apart from content writing on the internet, he likes reading various tech magazines and several other blogs on the internet. Email ID: arrowtricks.pvt@gmail.com
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