Improve Your Resume in 6 Easy Steps

Summary: In 6 easy steps you can improve your resume so that employers will be able to quickly determine if they need to learn more about you in an interview.

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Resumes are the first opportunity to stand out from the crowd during your job search. Demonstrate your skills and what you have to offer the company in a resume that grabs their attention. These tips apply for any kind of job in any industry. They will help you approach, design, and put the finishing touches into a resume that shows off your talent.

It’s not about you. Keep this at the front of your mind as you prepare a resume. You are not telling the employer what you want – you are showing them how you can add value to their company. They don’t need to know your life story or things about your abilities that aren’t relevant. Include skills and characteristics that the company is looking for.
Be outside the box in your thinking. Your resume should do more than just state that you fit the job description. Go beyond that and demonstrate your abilities in a creative way. If your job requires the use of Adobe Suite or PowerPoint then show your proficiencies in the program by using one of them to design your resume.
Portfolios are not just for artistic jobs. Whenever you have work experience that can be documented, show it off in a portfolio that you send with your resume. Real examples will be a better demonstration of your skills than words on a resume will. Portfolios also give you and the employer something to look over during an interview.
When it comes to the design of the resume, choose a font that is easy to read but says something about who you are. If the job is for things like number crunching, then choose a sans serif font. A research and writing type job would be best depicted in a serif font. In any case, there will be an appropriate font you can use besides Times New Roman.
Use bullet points with caution. Stick to two or three per category. Using several to describe a job will be overload on the reader’s mind to comprehend all that you did in that job. Job descriptions are better displayed in a two or three sentence paragraph. Include how the job developed your skills in the paragraph and then use the bullet points to show any specific successes or measurable information.
Clean up your resume and make sure it looks perfect. Don’t waste precious space on your resume with things that won’t affect you getting hired such as your street address or hobbies. Clean up the information you do provide by removing hyperlinks from email addresses or LinkedIn profile pages. Convert your resume to a PDF (or JPG/GIF if appropriate) before emailing so nothing gets messed up when it is opened by the receiver.

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