Your Resume Is Your Introduction

Your resume is your introduction to a recruiter and to a prospective manager. It needs to be clear, concise, and error free for a recruiter and a hiring manager to read on.

If it’s too long, or filled with errors, or if it doesn’t effectively communicate why you would be a great hire, odds are that your resume will fall into the Do Not Contact pile.

It’s important that your resume presents a good first impression for you. You want it to scream off the screen “HIRE ME.” Here are a few tips to get your resume working for you.

Statement Summary

Your statement summary is your introduction to the recruiter or hiring manager. In two to three quick sentences, you need to be able to effectively communicate why they should continue reading your resume. The statement summary is not intended to be your entire professional story, but it does need to quickly summarize and highlight your strengths and provide a recruiter a reason why they should read on.

Don’t make your statement summary too long or too long-winded. Also avoid uses clichés such as “confident in my skills and in my eagerness to succeed”, or “I would be a tremendous asset to your company.” These statements are hollow and don’t say much about you. Instead state how you will be a tremendous asset; be specific about the skills you will be bringing to the team.

Effectively Communicate Experience

There’s a big difference between providing your experience versus listing your day-to-day tasks. Your resume should provide your experience, not the latter. Unfortunately for some, their resume is simply a bulleted list of tasks from their previous positions.

With the hundreds of resumes that may cross a recruiter’s inbox, it’s important for your resume to attract their attention to your accomplishments, awards, and the promotions you have attained. Some further examples might be:  

  • Specific achievements that helped you exceed within your team
  • Accomplishments you achieved that resulted in a promotion
  • Improvements you created within your team or department to make it more efficient

These are the highlights in your resume that will make you more marketable and increase your likelihood to receive a phone interview, instead of simply listing bulleted job tasks.

Grammar and Spelling

It may not even matter how many accomplishments, achievements, or promotions you have on your resume if it doesn’t look professional. There is nothing that screams out more that your resume should be filed in the trash folder than if it is littered with basic grammar and spelling mistakes.

Take time to proofread your resume.  Be sure it is readable and understandable. Have a family member or friend also proofread it. Often times, when you write your own resume, you read what you intended to write, not what you actually wrote. Having a fresh set of eyes review your resume will ensure that someone with a fresh perspective has reviewed it and can give you helpful guidance and advice.

Kane Partners Can Help with Your Resume

Getting your resume up to snuff can be time a consuming process and does require work on your part. Invest the time upfront into your resume and the dividends will be paid through the interviews and job opportunities you receive.

Oftentimes, it is the little things that set you apart from the competition.  Your resume is no exception to this rule. Contact Kane Partners to see how we can help in your job search today.