How to Craft a Resume That Impresses the Right People
Your resume gives the hiring manager their first impression of you, so what you put there and how you present that information is critical. It takes careful planning and strategic wording to create a resume that impresses the right people.
You also need to carefully tailor your resume to fit each position, ensuring that it lays out your qualifications for that job in the most impactful way. Ultimately, the goal of your resume is to land you a job, and if it never even makes it to the hiring manager, it’s failed. How do you put together a resume that wows? If you need help impressing hiring managers, contact our resume experts without delay.
1. Use keywords
Successful resumes contain keywords, not buzzwords. Buzzwords are overused words—think “driven,” “hard worker,” “team player,” and the like—that get your resume tossed out by the applicant tracking system (ATS) before ever making it to the hiring manager. An ATS is a robotic hiring assistant that most large and mid-sized companies use to scan job applications before they’re passed on to the human recruiter. This system will dispose of any submissions it deems irrelevant.
Instead of buzzwords, use keywords to get past the ATS. The right keywords vary based on the job, so you’ll have to tweak your resume every time you apply for a new position. How do you know which keywords to use? As you read through the job description, note any words that stand out in some way, whether they’re bolded, underlined, uppercased, or just frequently used. Make sure to incorporate these words into your resume (assuming they apply to you). This way, the hiring manager will see not only that you’re properly qualified but also that you carefully read the job description.
2. Prove your qualifications
It’s easy to just cram a bunch of keywords into your resume to please the hiring manager, but for them to mean anything, you have to offer proof. Show how your skills have resulted in success by highlighting accomplishments from your previous jobs. Be as specific as possible, listing statistics and numbers where you can. Prove that you can succeed in this job, which is why they should hire you.
3. Show attention to detail
Hiring managers look for candidates who pay attention to the little details, so double-, triple-, and even quadruple-check your resume before you submit it. This could mean updating your formatting or correcting any spelling, punctuation, grammar, or capitalization mistakes. Even a minor spelling error could make the difference between getting an interview and having your resume end up in the trash—that’s how much it matters.
It might not sound fair, but that’s just the way it is. Hiring managers are inundated with job applications, so they have no problem throwing some out for seemingly trivial reasons. Therefore, your best bet when it comes to editing your resume is to send it to professional editors.
4. Provide results, not descriptions
Hiring managers don’t want to see a list of your responsibilities in your previous job. They don’t really care what you did—they care about the results you produced. So, instead of listing your responsibilities, present your achievements. Highlight your most impressive accomplishments in each job to give them a reason to hire you. Recruiters want to know that if they bet on you, you will add value to their company, which they determine by judging whether you added value to previous companies
5. Demonstrate excellent communication skills
Knowing how to communicate with co-workers, supervisors, and customers is a crucial skill in any job. Hiring managers can get a glimpse into your communication skills based on your resume. Demonstrate your excellence in this area not only by mentioning it in your skills section but also through your word choice. Show the hiring manager you can use language to get the results you want. If you can use language to persuade them to hire you, that’s a pretty good display of your communication skills. If you want help with this, turn to professional resume writers—they can help you find the right words.
6. Highlight your loyalty
Employers are interested in hiring workers who will stick around. Unless it’s a temporary position, most companies want their employees to stay with them for as long as possible. They determine your future loyalty to them based on your loyalty to your previous employers.
In case your work experience section is filled with jobs where you stayed for only a few months, you may have trouble getting hired. If you were at a job for less than a year, provide a brief explanation as to why you didn’t do it longer, which demonstrates your honesty up front. Just be ready to explain your short-term jobs during the interview. If you have a compelling reason why they can expect more loyalty from you, all these short-term jobs may not hurt you.
For jobs you were at longer, be sure to highlight any promotions and the results you achieved there. If the hiring manager sees your willingness to work hard, they’re more likely to give you the job along with opening up room for promotion based on your loyalty.
Does your resume impress the right people? As you continue to work on it, make sure that it checks off these six boxes to ensure that it does wow hiring managers. Don’t settle for a basic, generic resume that will never excite anyone. You want a job, so use your resume to impress! Do you need help impressing the right people? Our professional resume writers are ready to assist you!
