Resume Essential Tips

We all know a resume is necessary to get hired, but just how important is it?

Your resume does so much more than get you hired. It is the first impression at your dream job, the conversation starter in an interview, the tool that carries all your professional accomplishments and accolades. Even though we all know our resume holds value, the contents of it often become an afterthought, especially as we move further and further along in our careers. 

Here are some common mistakes we see on candidate resumes, with tips from our recruiters on how to fix them to make your resume shine for potential employers:

• Contact information is hard to find

• A resume reads as just a list of your previous jobs

• Career accomplishments are not listed, just job responsibilities 

• Grammatical error 

• Formatting is not easy to follow or consistent 

Contact information is hard to find

Your contact information should be the header of the resume and easily readable. This is the information that employers will use to reach out to you. Make sure it is eye-catching and correct.

Resume reads as a list of your previous jobs

Keeping an ongoing list of previous jobs and duties is a great place to start when formatting a resume, but it should never be your final submission. Make sure your resume highlights your work while being uniquely crafted towards the position you want.

Career accomplishments are not the focus; only job responsibilities are listed

Employers generally know what responsibilities are included with certain job titles; what they are looking for is how you stood out in the role, quantifiable achievements you met, and the value you brought to the position.

Grammatical errors

Big or small, these errors can be the difference in you getting the job or not. Take it a step further than the automated grammar check: have another person read over your resume. There are often errors our own eyes will miss after reading the same thing over and over again. Do yourself a favor and have a friend or one of our recruiters read it over for correctness and feedback. 

Formatting is not easy to follow or consistent 

Make sure your resume is formatted to highlight your skills while fitting within industry standards and not pieced together from different documents. This will make your resume look sloppy and be a turn-off to hiring managers. 

Ready to update your resume, but not sure where to start? Reach out to us to chat about using our affordable and easy-to-use resume builder service.