Your resume is the first and sometimes only thing an employer looks at when evaluating whether you are a good fit for the job they are looking to fill. Resumes need to do a lot of leg work. They need to be concise, clear, and strategic to quickly and efficiently get the top skills and experience across to a reader. A resume that is too long or wordy will get overlooked. Here are the key things that employers are really looking for when they read your resume.
1. Clarity
Given that employers receive many, many applications for most jobs, it makes sense that they pick the most qualified of the candidates to come in for an interview. You need to know what those hiring managers are looking for from a successful candidate and position yourself appropriately to impress those readers. Highlight your past successes. Showcase your results to give them an idea of what you could do for them if you were hired. Start sentences with action verbs, so your reader knows exactly what you are trying to get across. Growing a team is hard work. Make it easy on your hiring manager and show them why you are the most qualified applicant.
2. Avoiding Common Mistakes
The two most common mistakes managers come across on resumes are by far easy to catch typos and grammatical errors, with outright lies as a close second. One might think that a lie is hard to catch on a resume, but in today’s modern era of LinkedIn and Google, it’s a lot easier than you think. Other common mistakes in resumes include unprofessional emails, a lack of quantifiable results, long paragraphs or large blocks of text, overly generic resumes, and overly long resumes (those that exceed 2 pages). These are all mistakes that you can avoid easily. So make sure you’re not falling into these traps in 2021.
3. Relevance
One of the most important things managers are looking for is experience and expertise in their field. The less work they have to do to train you and educate you on how to be effective on the job, the more successful you will be. So make sure your resume is on point and relevant to their interests. That often means writing industry-specific resumes. The generic resume no longer works for most companies. Nowadays, field-specific or targeted resume types are both smarter and more critical. By highlighting the skills that match the job criteria, your resume can immediately show that you are qualified for the job. This can get you better chances of being called for an interview.
4. Resume Optimization
Now that so many businesses rely on software and programs to help weed out the best candidates for a job, making sure your resume is optimized for ATS scanning is critical. By beating the bots, you’ll have more chances of passing a company’s ATS (Applicant Tracking System) scanning, providing you with more job opportunities. In the past years, ATS software solutions were used mainly by large organizations. Still, even small companies are now relying more heavily on keywords and resume screeners to make sure they’re spending their time on the right candidates. To make sure you are doing the work needed to beat the bots, pay close attention to the keywords you are using in your resume.
Learn How to Craft Your Resume
For more tips on how to craft a resume that gets the attention you deserve, connect with the recruiting team at ESGI today.