It’s a new year and a new opportunity to refresh that stale resume! Even if you’re not looking for a job, the beginning of a year is a great time to update your resume with skills, responsibilities, or other valuable tools gained over the last twelve months.
Remember that your resume is your first impression, so here are some tips to help it shine –
- Choose the Right Format: Think professional, neat, and easy to read! Stick with fonts that are clear and sections that are defined. Tables, boxes, and graphics can jumble when being viewed or uploaded. If a Recruiter can’t easily read it, it will be quickly discarded.
- Grab Their Attention: Skip the “Objective” section. A “Summary” or “Overview” at the top of your resume can make a big difference. Recruiters usually only take a few minutes to review resumes for key skills and experience, so stand out by highlighting it at the top. If information is buried too far down a resume, it might never be seen.
- Be Consistent: Fonts, dates, tense…everything! It only takes a few minutes to ensure your fonts match, your dates are the same format (ex: 11/2022 versus Nov. 2022), and your words are in proper tense. Insider tip – Use present tense for current job and past tense for previous roles.
- Choose PDF or Word: You’ve put in all this hard work making your resume beautiful, but the Recruiter can’t open it, or the Applicant Tracking System can’t load it. PDF is usually best because it keeps your layout the same, but some applications ask for Word, so play it smart and save your resume in both versions.
- Add Valuable Content: This sounds simple, but most people struggle with what to put on a resume. Think about your main responsibilities, your accomplishments, key metrics tied to your position, and your greatest strengths. Focus there and build.
Hopefully using these tips to refresh your resume will bring you good things in 2023!