Stand out from the rest with these game changing resume techniques.

In today’s competitive recruiting landscape, resumes come a dime a dozen, and arguably, a resume is not what will get your foot in the door at a company. In most cases, your ability to land a job is determined by how well you network. But, that’s neither here nor there, a resume is still the universal job search document and thus necessary for any job search.

When I was a recruiter, I must have read thousands of resumes. Only a very small percentage of those made it through to the next step of the hiring process. The ones that didn’t make it either did not sell me on what value they could bring to my company or they did not do so in 5-7 seconds. I know, it’s brutal, but it’s the truth. If you want to increase the chances that your resume makes the cut, simply make use of the following techniques.

Less is more

The appearance of your resume is a key factor in helping you to make a lasting impression. Your goal should be to write a visually appealing resume that has balance and has just the right amount of formatting to show emphasis. If your resume has 8 pt. font and tiny margins, then you have tried to squeeze too much on the page. As a rule of thumb, don’t go below 11 pt. font and keep your margins at no less than 0.5 inches. Also, ensure that there is a space after each section heading.  Be conscious of your use of formatting on your resume. Stick to a black font. Only use bold font for emphasis of your heading name and section titles (i.e. Education, Experience, etc.). Always be consistent. If one job title is italicized, then they all should be italicized. If you have a period at the end of one bullet, then they all should have a period.

Quantify

No matter the functional area of the job you are pursuing, numbers are your friend and should be used in your resume to provide context to your work experience. The use of numbers also draws attention to the surrounding words because they jump out on the page to the reader.  

Examples:

• Instituted Lean Six Sigma training, reducing inventory shortage by 22%.

• Developed centralized recruiting strategy, improving efficiency and decreasing time-to-hire from 120 days to 36 days.

When trying to decide how to incorporate numbers into your resume think about time comparisons, percentages, $$$, and even job specific metrics that were used to measure your performance. (I.e. a web developer may be measured on web traffic or number of clicks. Therefore, that metric should be included somewhere on their resume.)

Show Your Value

Make sure that the content of your bullets is value oriented rather than task oriented. Each bullet should conclude with a positive outcome or result and also highlight your transferable skills.

Example:

• Responsible for management of front office staff.

The best way I can describe this is… blah; you haven’t given the hiring manager any reason to pick your resume over that of another applicant with the same skill set. Don’t make the reader have to guess what you did to add value to their company. Pick a task or project that you excelled in and expand on it. Then say why what you did was important or how it helped your boss, team, or company.

• Led team of 7 in strategy and implementation of process standardization project leading to 25% cost savings for the company.

Now the hiring manager’s antennas are up- You’ve provided a task (process standardization project), action (led team of 7 in strategy and implementation), and quantified result (25% cost savings).