5 Ways to Make Your Resume Stand Out

Human Resources Associates, Recruitment Agents, and Hiring Managers are bombarded daily with resumes. Realistically they do not have the time to scour through every single resume reading about your special talent, or your favorite hobby. Because of the limited amount of time these professionals have they are always on the lookout for ways to weed out candidates rather quickly. Shockingly, some hiring managers can simply give a single glance to a resume and decide whether it’s a ‘yes’ or ‘no’. So, it is very important that you make those few seconds count, and possibly land in the forefront of thousands of competing candidates. Here are five ways to take your resume to the next level.

1. Make sure that your resume is rid of any errors and that the readability is simple and easy. Making the decision to use an artsy resume template or something exorbitant is the first door to easy rejection. Remember less is always more and simple triumphs every time. Most often, reps equate typos and errors with laziness and the last impression you want to convey is laziness.
2. Use your resume to tell your story. Your resume is a snapshot of your dependability, work ethic, work patterns, etc. Control the narrative and make the story count. You can do this by displaying your professional experience, accomplishments, skills, talents, and relevant knowledge for the job you are applying to. The trick is to make it long enough to tell your story through growth, promotions, and advancements. But once again you want to make it short enough to be able to obtain the information in one glance.
3. THE COVER LETTER IS NOT OPTIONAL. A cover letter is a auxiliary tool for the resume, while many of us think it is useless and optional it could really be the deciding factor behind whether you advance to the next step or not. Unless the hiring manager explicitly says to ignore the cover letter then take the time to write and customize one.
4. Include enough buzzwords and keywords pertaining to your intended industry. Buzzwords are meant to describe your capabilities and demonstrate how you are a better fit for the position. Some examples include budgeted, compiled, facilitated, merchandised, resolved, or upgraded. But be careful to not include some of the overused buzzwords such as, specialized, leadership, excellent, creative, or experienced.
5. Use a header. The header will be the first thing that a hiring manager may see and it’s a statement that should typically be in caps presenting important information rather quickly