Successfully landing a job starts with a well-written resume. Employers often have a large pool of applications to review; they may only spend a few minutes scanning each resume. To stand out from the get-go, a candidate’s resume needs to capture an employer’s attention immediately.
Everything a hiring manager needs to know about you should be present in this document – this will be their first opportunity to decide if you fit the job or not; it sums up all your qualifications and achievements.
Resumes should focus on results while keeping it short and snappy. Although that is true and important, candidates often forget the golden rule: tailoring your resume to the job that you want.
Why It’s Important to Personalize Your Resume
Hiring managers are responsible for finding the most suitable candidate for the job since this is their main purpose. With tons and dozens of applications lined up for a certain role, it can be challenging to stand out.
Hiring managers first pinpoint who have the right skills, experience, and knowledge for the role, and these people are the ones chosen to be interviewed. Irrelevant or generic resumes are quickly disregarded.
Tailoring your resume to the company and job is essential to make your competencies stand out. Sammons Recruitment Group recommends writing a new resume for every role that a candidate applies for.
Applicants that create a personalized resume show their genuine interest in the role and their commitment to land the job. Remember that for most job seekers, a good resume is what stands between getting their dream job and being the last choice.
So, how do you personalize your resume?
· Do Your Research
Before anything else, make sure you take the time to understand what the employer is looking for – browse the company website, blogs, social media pages just to gain a feel of their work culture, goals, and current activities. Knowing all this information will help you determine how to approach the company or how you can show that your skills and experience can benefit the company.
Make sure you also don’t forget to carefully read the job description and qualifications they need for the role. Assess if the requirements are aligned with your skills and experiences – have you done similar tasks before? Have you worked with the same tools needed?
· Know What to Prioritize
Read through the qualifications and check off any skills or requirements that you think are aligned with your previous experience or responsibilities. Knowing your relevant qualities will help you evaluate yourself; you should also know what hard skills, industry knowledge, and specific qualifications the company is asking for. From there, you can review and assess which ones should be prioritized.
Your resume should be able to reflect what the employer needs. What you think is most important for them should be listed first on your application – include it in the professional summary or have it listed in your core skills to promote your suitability for the role in a brief glance. Keep in mind that the average time spent by recruiters to skim through a resume is about 5 to 7 seconds.
It’s also important that you populate your CV with relevant keywords that resume searching tools will pick up.
· Get Straight to The Point
Now that you have your initial draft make sure that you list the current or most recent experience you have. It’s still important to include details, but make sure to minimize the details of the older roles that you had to make space for the more relevant and current experience. You don’t have to include every hobby, project, and extracurricular activity you have done before – ask yourself first if this is a detail the hiring manager needs to know to assess your suitability for the role.
A great resume is all about substance. While details are important, you also need to remember that your resume should be easy to read. It’s much more compelling to focus on quality, not quantity, and to have a clean and fuss-free design and layout.
Remember that less is more, so instead of putting your responsibilities and accomplishments in lengthy paragraphs, list them down as bullet points. And to top it off, make sure that you start with strong action verbs.
Although time-consuming, personalizing your resume is a crucial part of the job-hunting process. A fit-for-purpose resume will give you a higher response rate and get you a step closer to your dream job.
Final Thoughts
Staying honest and fair to ourselves is key to success in doing remote work. With much luck, social distancing can prove itself to be effective. Once this happens, we can all go back to our daily routines sooner than later.
Working from home offers many benefits and conveniences, but it may also mean not leaving home for several days at a time. Minimal social interaction can affect people and how they perform.
Curran Daly & Associates is a top executive search firm in the Philippines. Our top-notch recruiters can help you find the right talent. Connect with us by simply clicking here!
You may also check out our insights on career and HR through our updated blogs!
References:
Fennell, A. (April 2020). This one résumé tip will serve you through good and bad hiring times. Retrieved from https://www.fastcompany.com/90494156/this-one-resume-tip-will-serve-you-through-good-and-bad-hiring-times
The Muse. (2020). This Is What Your Resume Should Look Like in 2020. Retrieved from https://www.themuse.com/advice/what-your-resume-should-look-like-in-2020
Top tips for making your CV & LinkedIn profile stand out in the crowded job market. — Sammons Recruitment Group. (2022). Retrieved 4 February 2022, from https://sammons.co.uk/2022/01/top-tips-for-making-your-cv-linkedin-profile-stand-out-in-the-crowded-job-market/
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