If you’re looking for a new job, your resume should receive a little TLC. Fortunately, you don’t need to spend hours going through your resume. You can quickly scan through your resume to look for a few key details, and make any necessary changes. With this simple checklist, you can level up your resume in only a short time.
Contact Information
The first thing you should do is take a look at your contact information. Although this might seem easy enough, people often provide incorrect or missing contact details. Your contact information should include your full name, phone number, email address, and location.
Full Name
Some people don’t go by their full name. In this case, you can use your nickname as well as your full name. Just don’t make the mistake of only putting your nickname, as this could cause issues during the hiring process.
Email Address
If you’re like most people, you probably have several email addresses. You should use an email that you check frequently, or you risk missing notifications about the job. Furthermore, the email address should be easy to read and professional. If your email is something inappropriate, you should consider creating a new account for the job hunt. Consider using an email with your first and last name.
Location
By putting your location, you let an employer know that you’re either in their area or looking for remote work. It’s a good idea to include a general location on your resume.
Social Media
Depending on your industry, you may want to include a link to your professional social media account or website portfolio. This is particularly useful for people in digital marketing or graphic design.
Readability
Is your resume easy to read? By checking for the following, you can ensure your resume has great readability.
Looks Clean
A good resume is easy to read and looks appealing. Typically, this means you have bullet points, subheadings, and even line spacing. If you don’t have an existing resume or your current resume is too messy, you can start over with a resume template.
You should also be mindful of the font type. By using a small or strange font, you make it difficult for the hiring manager to read your resume.
ATS
Today, many employers use applicant tracking systems (ATS) to weed out candidates. These systems look for certain details, like format types and keywords. If the job listing says a specific file type, be sure to convert your file to that.
You should also scan the job listing for specific skills and qualifications. If you don’t include them on your resume, you could miss out on the job without anyone ever seeing your resume. When an ATS doesn’t see what it’s looking for, it automatically rejects the resume.
Keywords
Even if a company doesn’t use an ATS, the hiring manager still wants to see certain keywords. Remember, a company could receive hundreds of applications for one job. The hiring manager doesn’t have time to read through every resume, so they often scan the documents for certain words.
These words are specific to the job listing. Before you send out your resume, make sure it includes a few important keywords also mentioned in the job listing. These keywords usually relate to the skills, certifications, and traits an employee needs. For every job you apply for, recheck your resume for the keywords. While keywords often overlap, they could vary from job listing to job listing.
Resume Summary
At the top of your resume, you should have a detailed summary of your experience. Once again, this allows the hiring manager to quickly determine whether or not you’re a good fit for the position. The summary might also be referred to as an objective. In any case, it should be a one to three sentence paragraph about your goals, skills, and qualifications.
Your resume summary or objective is an opportunity to highlight what makes you the best fit for the position. Use some of the keywords you found in the job listing to make the most impact. For the best results, write the summary in a conversational tone.
Skills
The skills section of a resume should be very easy to read. Additionally, it should showcase your strengths that relate the most to the job listing. There’s no need to include every single strength you have because a hiring manager only cares about the relevant ones.
In your skills section, you should have both the hard and soft skills that you see in the job listing. Paint a picture that shows what makes you special. When the hiring manager looks at your skills section, they should be able to imagine you excelling in the role. Even if you’re new to an industry, you have skills that carry over to the job. Look for connections between your old roles and your desired one.
If your skills section doesn’t already have bullet points, rewrite it that way. Bullet points make this section much easier to read.
Metrics
If your resume only has verbs and adjectives, you’re missing out. Hiring managers want to see proof that back-up your skills and achievements. In your resume, be sure to include metrics that indicate your success.
Being specific is the key to impressing your hiring manager. Instead of saying, “Increased sales volume,” say “Increased sales by 22%.” The number has a much stronger impact because it shows the hiring manager just how profound your success was.
Typically, the achievement and skills sections of a resume are the best places to include metrics. If you’re still working a job, start measuring some of your successes to put on your resume in the future. For now, you can use estimates and averages as your metrics.
Get Your Resume Ready for Viewing
It’s not too late to edit your resume. Before you apply for your next job, glance at your resume and see if it needs any changes. Even if you have all of the details mentioned above, you should spend some time updating the document. Doing so could be the key to receiving a job offer.