This post will cover key resume writing tips you need to up your game, and get your foot in the door to land an interview! While there’s a lot to consider when building your resume, these 9 resume writing tips hold true no matter what industry or job you’re applying for. After you’ve built your resume, don’t forget to download our interview playbook to help you get ready for your interview (link other post)!
Navigate to where you want to go: 1. Read the job description 1.1 Look for themes & keywords 1.2 Cross-reference requirements and assets 2. Tailor your resume 2.1 Relevance 2.2 Write for the job you want 2.3 Open with an action verb 2.4 Showcase your results 3. Format is King 3.1 Easy to read 3.2 Date alignment 4. Proofread
Read the Job Description
The job description has everything you need to to write an engaging resume and cover letter, so make sure you read it carefully!
Look for themes & keywords
Thoroughly read the job description and write down any themes you notice, and words explaining what they’re looking for in a candidate. This way you can frame your resume in a way that supports their vision.
While you do this, be sure to fill out your interview playbook so you can build it out with relevant experiences, and be ready for an interview when you get one!
Cross-reference requirements and assets
As you’re reading through a job description, ideal candidate descriptions will fall into two buckets: requirement, and nice-to-have (or asset). If any of these are areas you can work on before applying it will give you a leg-up in the screening process.
If a position says that an ideal candidate would have familiarity with a certain software or platform, check out any free courses that can help you brush up on the topic. LinkedIn Learning is a great resource, and offers courses on a wide variety of skills and industries.
Once you finish a course you can add it to your LinkedIn profile, and put it on your resume for relevant jobs. This is a great way for you to demonstrate your interest, and shows you’re actively trying to fill out the requirements of the role. A great sign for employers looking for initiative!
Tailor your resume
Every organization has unique skills and competencies they’re looking for. Within one type of role they’re likely pretty similar, but every company has specifics they're looking for in a candidate.
Relevance
It’s important that you think about the relevance of each of job and skill you have when applying.
Not every qualification or experience you have will be equally relevant across the positions that you apply for. Especially when applying to a variety of jobs within an industry, highlight specific abilities if the position calls for it.
To streamline the application process, develop a couple resume templates for each job function. That way you don’t need to make major changes to it when you see a job posting that interests you.
Write for the job you want
Under each job stated on your resume should be a few bullet points indicating what you did during your time in the role. It’s important that you adapt these in a way that presents you as the ideal candidate for the role you're applying for.
For example, if you have HR experience but are applying for a Marketing role, reframe your experience to showcase marketing competencies:
Original: Developed targeted job postings resulting in a XX% increase in applicants
Adapted: Executed targeted campaign to identify potential applicants resulting in a XX% increase in capture rate
Open with an action verb
Each point on your resume should open with a verb that demonstrates what you did. In the example above, the verbs are “developed” and “executed”.
Be mindful of the number of times that you apply the same verb to your resume. The goal is to show your breadth of skills, so introduce a variety of words that explain what you did.
This is a great resource for finding the right verbs for your resume, so I highly recommend sifting through it to find a variety of words to describe your experience!
Showcase your results
Your resume is a place not just to share job descriptions, but to show what you accomplished in each role. Whenever you’re going to share something you worked on, include what the result of that action was!
Structure your bullet points in a way that shows the recruiter what you accomplished!
As a general guideline:
Action verb → what you did → result
For example:
Executed targeted campaign to identify potential applicants resulting in a XX% increase in capture rate
Format is King
Out of all of these resume writing tips, never forget that format is KING. Don’t try and reinvent the wheel when you’re writing your resume. There’s a reason that there’s a ‘standard’ format. All of your experience and writing is for nothing if the recruiter is unable to understand the layout of your resume.
Easy to read
As a former hiring manager, I’ve seen some funky layouts that are hard to figure out where the information is. Adding in different fonts, colours, and unnecessary columns just makes it harder to find your information, and unfortunately with such competitive positions they just aren’t worth the time.
Remember, your resume only gets a few seconds of consideration by a recruiter! Your chances of getting an interview are close to zero if they have to hunt for your information and experience.
Give yourself the best possible chance of getting an interview and make things clear!
Date alignment
This piggybacks off of the previous point, but formatting dates can get funky if you make any changes to a document.
Make sure that the formatting and alignment is consistent throughout!
Proofread
Finally, when you’ve done all the heavy lifting of writing and formatting your resume, it’s time to proofread! Spelling mistakes jump right off the page when a recruiter is reading it. Once you’ve read it over a few times, have a friend look it over to make sure everything checks out.
What resume writing tips have you found useful for building your resume? Comment below!
