Jobstreet Resume

Elita Athénaïs January 6, 2021 Resume

A poorly qualified candidate with an elegant, professional looking resume may get called for a job interview, while a stronger candidate can be left behind because of poor resume aesthetics or subpar presentation, and no one will ever know. It’s a one way street. A poor resume might generate a 1/20 interview ratio, while an exceptional resume should generate a 1/6 ratio or better. Resumes are often read with a negative bias. ”What is this candidate missing?” As a longtime recruiter, 50% of the resumes that I screened were poorly written. About 40% were average and only 10% were effective selling resumes. Most resumes are narrative, unfocused and are not ”selling resumes”. A Selling resume is at least 31% more likely to land interviews, 40% more likely to receive a job offer, and 38% more likely to be contacted by recruiters, compared to an average resume. A Selling resume is about 70% more likely to get interviews than a poor resume.

Representative Work- If one were to order a piece of jewelry, art or furniture, a savvy consumer will want to review the talent first, right? Nobody wants to spend money on an item without seeing samples of items or products that the ”artist” has produced. This is by far, one of the most telling tales of a resume service’s quality. Without viewing their resumes, how can you be sure that their resumes are really ARE ”the best” or the ”most successful?”

Everyone Needs a ”Resume Coach”. Can you imagine any competition, serious endeavor, an Olympic athlete or top performer in any field where a coach, consultant or mentor is not employed to achieve excellent results? That is why sports coaches, fitness coaches, executive coaches, sales coaches, life coaches and experts are sought. They provide the strategy, tactics and best practices to quickly and easily achieve results. Yet on many career blogs you will see that, usually to save a few dollars, people often insist on doing their own resumes and their own interview prep without using any type of career coaching. While this do-it-yourself approach may result in finding jobs, in today’s competitive world it usually means a longer job search or a suboptimal result. The questions to ask in a buyers’ market are: ”How can I get a competitive edge?” and ”How do I win this resume game?”

1. Choose a resume template: A resume template is a good way to get started. There are resume templates available for free over the Internet in vast quantity. Find out several resume templates created by professionals that relate to your profession, title and type of your work. A resume template makes resume writing task much easier if utilized in right way. Use these resume templates as idea generators. Get an idea of how you should write your resume. What sections you should write in which order and how to write them. For example you can get an idea of how your resume objective should be by studying several objective statements in resume templates. Keep in mind that you are just using these templates as idea generators to craft out your unique resume because you are a unique. While choosing resume templates look for the resumes that strongly relevant to your academic background, area of expertise, your skills, qualifications, your professional experiences and kind of your work. There are some fundamental formats of resumes- Chronological, Combination and functional and Targeted (most preferred format today) Each format is used in particular condition. Research about these formats. Learn which format is used when and which format best suites you. Create your basic resume which you can edit whenever you need. Whenever you write a resume targeting specific job.

7. Write About Your Results, Not Responsibilities. Don’t let your resume make the mistake of focusing on your previous jobs’ responsibilities. Your resume should focus on the computer programming work that you did and what you achieved. As a hint, avoid using the word responsibility or responsibilities on your resume so you don’t fall into this trap. In writing about each of your previous jobs, discuss your results. Tell about what results were realized because of the work you performed. Be quantitative. Reviewers love to see numbers and results. Tell about how many desktops or users you supported, recount how many databases you administered, show a percentage of application or network uptime you maintained, provide a percent reduction of security incidents you achieved, etc. Get the idea? This is where you impress your reviewer. One of the current trends in job candidate evaluation is behavioral with the idea being that your past performance is the best indicator of your future performance. So, toot your horn a little and make your accomplishments known. Quantifying your experience is usually the most difficult part of preparing a resume for any person. So take some time, think it through, and detail the results you achieved in each of your positions relevant to the one for which you are applying.

First Page Format- When it comes to writing a resume, the first page is ground zero. Before a reviewer even begins to read through the details of your resume, they will be making both conscious and unconscious assessments of the layout of the document. If competition is tough and you are competing with many well presented and written resume’s, a flawed front page can often equate to rejection. The first page of a resume should always present well. This can be tricky because you need to capture as much noteworthy information as possible, whilst keeping the layout neat and easy to read. You can achieve this by adhering to the brevity rule above, and also being ruthless with what to include/exclude. Too many resume first pages contain information that is either superfluous or could be included later in the document. In terms of layout, there should be consistent use of headers, paragraphs, bullet points and white space to clearly delineate between sections of the document and key points highlighted. Along with use of appropriate font and size, the document should not only be easy to read, but should be easy for a reviewer to identify key information.