Let me guess you have a resume but it’s not landing you the job interviews you really want. Maybe you’ve submitted your resume to hundreds or even dozens of positions. In this blog, I’m sharing a proven strategy that has helped my clients/consultants and students achieve things like only ending a job making two times their current salary, or landing a job instantly after looking for work for over a year with a winning resume.
If you want to see results like them then keep reading till the end and as a very special bonus, I have a free resume template that you can download now and tailor for your next interview.
If we’ve never met before I’m Deepak Kumar from a Professional Sample Resume and you can find me on Facebook and LinkedIn.
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So in this blog, we’re sharing five simple steps that you can use right now to write a resume that lands you more interviews and better job offers.
Reading Lists
5 Proven Strategy to Write a Winning Resume
Job Summary
So let’s jump into it step number one create a stand-out summary. This section needs to clearly identify who you are and what you have to offer in terms of credentials experience results and even personality.
It needs to communicate some value proposition. These are the problems you solved and the skills you bring to the table. Think of your summary as a movie trailer you want to give them a teaser into who you are but don’t give them the entire story.
The summary section is like a sneak peek it makes some promises then the rest of the resume is used as evidence to support the promises mentioned in the summary.
There are four main components that make up a standout resume summary.
Let’s take a closer look, the first one is your title or what we call your identifier. This can be the job title that you as the candidate are seeking. The second component is your skills or your tagline. I like to recommend that you use at least three skills.
Here the third component stands out some rays of paragraphs of information that includes two to five sentences that go into greater detail about what it is that you do and how you can help the company solve their greatest problems.
So for example you can include an adjective to start the sentences off. You could then have a title. Now the title doesn’t exactly have to be the same as the title that you listed above. You can include industry content, you could also include the result or what the benefits are that you have to offer, and then of course do a recap of your key skills.
And then finally the fourth component to a standout summary is the core competencies section.
So the core competency sections are keywords or keyword phrases that explain your expertise more in detail.
Now here is a point when it comes to listing your core competencies make sure you’re pulling keywords and keyword phrases from the job posting.
Now you can place the word core competencies above this section doing that actually gives a helpful cue for applicant tracking systems. Then run your core competencies together with a vertical line surrounded by two spaces.
This is the essential framework to build a strong summary section and it addresses the needs of both the human and ATS reader master this framework and then adapts it to tailor each resume for the job posting.
You may also read: Update Resume 2021: How Do I Update My Resume?
Job Description
Tip number two to write a standout resume is to add job description paragraphs in your winning resume template. One way to make your resume stand out from all the others is by adding one to two sentences below the company name and job title that explains your main responsibilities or your position at a glance.
Let’s take a look at an example, in this example, you can see that it’s a senior project management role. You can see that this candidate mentions in two sentences what their daily responsibilities look like.
Now you’ll also notice the keywords and keyword phrases that are you within this paragraph. Now you can also use this introductory paragraph to mention the main objectives of the company you work for.
Bullet-Points
Step number three is to include accomplishment-driven bullet points followed by the paragraph under each job posting with accomplishment-driven bullet points these bullet points become the backbone of your resume and they tell the higher and official what your greatest accomplishments are.
Let me quickly share with you the three-part formula to write a strong accomplishment-driven bullet point you’ll want to start with.
Some type of action verb followed by the task that you performed and then followed by the result.
So here’s an example increased base by 30 percent during the year 2018 due to the delivery of quick service.
Here’s another example created and maintained office forms and procedures to assist with administrative tasks.
So in both of these examples, we start with some sort of action verbs followed by the tasks and then followed by the result of that task. Now here is a tip, when it comes to writing these accomplishment-driven bullet points you can always switch the result and the task so you could start the bullet point with an action verb followed by the result and then followed by the task.
Here’s another tip when it comes to writing your achievement statements, hiring officials love quantifiable results. So anytime that you can add some sort of number to the bullet point is a bonus.
So we want to look at data measurements maybe there’s a dollar amount associated with it. Maybe there’s a percentage, maybe there is the time associated with that so anytime you can add an achievement-driven bullet point that is quantifiable.
ATS Optimized
Step number four to a Winning resume is to make it ATS optimized, so ATS stands for Applicant Tracking System. This is a system that companies use to send your resume through to see if you are a good match for the position.
So to make sure your resume is ATS optimized, need to again make sure that you are using keywords and keyword phrases from the job posting exactly from the job posting and placing them in your resume.
So you want to make sure that you’re learning the company lingo. What types of words is the company using in their job posting and then transfer those into your resume here’s an example one company might use the word communication another company might use the word communicator.
You might even see one company using the word customer engagement and another company using the word customer success. Make sure that you follow the company Lingo in your resume so that you can get past the applicant tracking systems. This shows the company that you are literally speaking their language.
Formatting the Resume
The fifth step to create a standout resume is to format it for visibility. So when it comes to the visibility of your resume, you want to make sure that you’re not using tables text boxes columns, or even graphics.
Now I know that these things look great on a resume, the only problem is that they won’t get your resume past applicant tracking systems so we want to make sure that your resume is clean and sophisticated.
So you want to eliminate all the fluff and just include the data and the information that you need to get your foot in the door for the interview.
Hiring managers recruiters and HR professionals want to be able to find the information they’re looking for in the exact spot that they expect it to be this makes their job easier so don’t get too creative in the formatting of the design and the layout of this resume. Best practices are sort of like shorthand and they let hiring officials know where to find information quickly now to help you with the formatting of your resume.
Make sure you take a look at the Blog right here where I teach you exactly how to format your resume for better readability so that you can land more interviews and better job offers and if you like this Blog be sure to hit the thumbs up button down below and share with your friends and families.
