How to Develop Your Resume Better? Tips and Tricks for Your Success in Getting Employment!!

Abstract

The resume formats have standard elements, such as a summary, skills and education sections, each format structures those sections differently to focus on one in particular. The right resume format for a job will depend on your years of work experience, your skill set and how your qualifications match the job you want.

Keywords

Resume, Designing a great Resume, Types of Resume, Functional Resume, Chronological Resume, Combination Resume 

Learning Outcomes

After undergoing this article you will be able to understand the following 

1. What's a resume: An Overview?

2. Types of Resumes

3. Which resume is best for whom

4. Content sections sequence of resume

5. Designing tips for a great Resume

6. Conclusions

7. FAQs 

Overview:

A resume is a formal document that a job applicant creates to itemize their qualifications for a position. A resume is usually accompanied by a customized cover letter in which the applicant expresses an interest in a specific job or company and draws attention to the most relevant specifics on the resume.

Types of Resumes

What type of resume do you want to create? There are two basic resume formats: chronological and functional. The main difference between them is the emphasis on your employment history versus the emphasis on your skills:

• Chronological format highlights your employment history. This can work if you have a solid work history in a particular field and you're planning on looking for a similar position.
• Functional format highlights your skills. Use this format to show what you're capable of doing, even if it's not directly related to your work history. It's the best choice if you're changing careers.
• Combination format communicates your strongest qualifications while providing employers with relevant information on your employment history. Choose two or three skill areas to categorize your experiences.

Which resume types is best?

The reverse chronological resume format remains the most common one and the best pick for traditional companies where work experience is the most important factor. Functional resumes allow you to focus on specialized knowledge or skills but shouldn't be used just to cover gaps in work history.

Your resume format will determine how sections on your resume are organized. In short:

Chronological resume contains the information in the following sequence 

• Summary
• Work history
• Skills
• Education

Similarly, Functional resume contains the information in the following sequence 

• Summary or objective statement
• Summary of qualifications
• Skills sections
• Work history
• Education

Likewise , Combination resume contains the information in the following sequence 

• Summary
• Key skills or summary of qualifications
• Work history
• Education

The proper design and formatting are also important.

So one must learn about developing a good resume with due care to margin, fonts, differentiating techniques of heading and subheadings, line spacing and use of accurate words. 

What should it look like?

It’s important to make sure the design and layout of your resumé is neat and makes it easy to read. Use one or two clear fonts and use headings, bullet points and paragraphs to split up the text. While you’re at it, make sure your spelling and grammar are correct.

Follow the following tips to make your resume purposeful .

• Use white space and bullet points to help emphasize what you want the hiring manager to know about you. 
• Make legible that the hiring manager should scan to see your eligibility by easily spoting the information, otherwise you may be overlooked.
• Use bold and italics to emphasize key words or skills. 
• Be careful to not overuse this technique, though. 
• Don't use so many bold and italics. If there are too many elements in bold or italics, the emphasis is lost.
• Use a larger-point font for headings and subheadings. This can help direct attention to certain areas of your resume and also demonstrates a strong level of organization.
• Use a conservative font, like Times New Roman, Arial, or Tahoma. 
• If the font is difficult to read, your resume may not get pass the first look.
• Include adequate white space. This can be done around your headings, blocks of text, and with margins. 
• Hiring managers can use this area to take notes before, during, or after an interview.

Along with formatting your presentation, be sure to carefully edit your text. Consider the following points.

• Use verb tense consistently. For your present job, you can use the present tense, such as design and oversee production of building additions. 
• For previous employment, use the past tense (designed and oversaw).
• Vary your word choice. Even though you are trying to include key words, don't overdo it. 
• If the key phrase you are trying to include is strategic planning, use a thesaurus to find alternative words, like defined program goals and measures.
• Spell check, spell check, spell check! Almost every recruiter and hiring manager has a story about the resume they threw out because of a misspelled word. 
• Typos and misspelled words show that you are not detail oriented or conscientious about your work. 
• However, do not rely on your spell-checking software alone. 
• Some grammar and spelling mistakes can be easily missed.

What to leave out

Your resumé is meant to give a summary of your skills and experience – so there’s no need to include every detail. Some information isn’t necessary in a resumé:

• Leave out personal details such as your home address, religion, age or marital status
• There’s no need to list every job you’ve ever had – especially if a job isn’t relevant to the role you’re applying for now.
• Don’t include your salary expectations or previous salaries you’ve received

Summary of designing a resume 

1. Create a beautiful resume design with an eye-catching border. 
2. Use data visualizations to show off your soft skills. 
3. Make sure your resume design fits your industry. 
4. Stick to a consistent color palette throughout your resume design. 
5. Keep it simple. 
6. Highlight your contact information with a different background color.

Conclusions

Here are some tips for getting started:

• Begin by assembling the basic sections of your resume. 
• At this point, don’t worry about the order or wording of each section. 
• Just get information down.
• Use whatever writing tool works best for you. 
• For example, you may prefer to write on a yellow legal pad before starting a document on your computer.
• To show employers what you’re capable of, include a summary of qualifications.
• Make good use of keywords, integrating information you’ve gathered in your research. 
• Target the job description if possible. 
• Less is better for length; a recent graduate’s resume is often 1-2 pages.

FAQs

How not to format your resume

Knowing what not to do when creating your resume can be just as important as knowing what to include. Poor formatting provides potential employers with a disorganized mess that they’ll simply toss rather than try to puzzle out.

Many issues affect your resume immediately while others may not be seen without further inspection, so it’s important that you don’t take any chances. Be aware of the following:

• Added photos: Pictures, photos, and other graphics won’t pass through ATS, and they take up valuable space that can be better used to sell yourself.

• Too much color distracts the reader from what’s important and depicts you as immature and inexperienced.
• Unprofessional fonts: Although you may wish to show your sense of style, avoid scripted or detailed fonts since these can slow down the recruiter’s ability to read your information and mix up ATS.
• Missing information: It’s important to include all sections required for the resume format you choose because missing information is a red flag to a potential employer and makes you look scattered and disorganized.
• Exaggeration or lies: This should go without saying, but the truth always comes out. Lying on your resume even one time can prevent you from getting hired at other places as well since word gets around. Avoid overly patting yourself on the back, stick to the truth, and let your verifiable achievements speak for themselves.

How to make your resume easy trackable by ATS ?

Here are some considerations when creating your resume for ATS:

• Use the right file format: The most acceptable formats are .pdf and .doc, so you may want to keep a copy of your resume in both formats.
• Keep it simple: Use appropriate spacing and sections for readability.
• Avoid graphics: Pictures, lines, and other graphics will be seen as a garbled mess of text by ATS.
• Check your formatting: Copy the contents of your resume and paste into a plain text document. The results are basically how ATS will process it, so look for odd characters and sections that are out of place.
• Use traditional headers: The ATS is programmed to look for basic word combinations, so don’t get too creative in the wording of your section headers.
• Optimize keywords: ATS will look for the job title of the position and key industry terms. Look at the job description to see what words the hiring personnel used to get some ideas.