Consciously decide what your resume should radiate

When you go on a job interview, they always ask for your resume. In my previous job as a headhunter, and even now, I regularly view resumes – helping clients to create a resume that is a reflection of their personality and abilities. What’s important to know, is that the combination of the layout, content and personal information is an accurate translation of the candidate. Sometimes resumes look sloppy, others look very well laid out, one person uses lots of words and the other has an awesome looking design. Everything is information!
My advice is to pay the right amount of attention on how you present yourself through your resume. Make sure you stand behind every word you write and that your resume truly reflects you and what you want people to see. Try to place yourself in the person viewing your resume. This most likely isn’t just the HR or recruitment department, but also people from the division you’re soliciting for, or even international colleagues.
Here are some concrete tips when writing your resume.
The person:
- Write from the first person singular (I-form). After all, it’s your story
- Dare to take the personal route, share your self-reflection
- Include a short profile in your personal information
- Name your core beliefs, strong suits and ambitions for the future
- Pinpoint hobbies/interests that you’d like to talk about in an interview
The layout:
- Opt for a nice and clean layout. Keep it simple for the viewer
- Avoid too much text, space, colors or images
- When relevant, use similar titles in your work experience as named in the job description. This helps build trust with the person deciding about the job.
- Prevent typos and spelling errors; print out your resume and read it or even better, have someone else take a look at it. Show that you’ve made effort.
Content:
- Create a logical structure: personal information, a profile, education, work experience, side activities, courses/trainings, languages and other interests. The reader doesn’t want to have to search for the information.
- Adjust the language to the language of the job description (an English description = an English resume).
- Keep your work experience factual, short and sweet. The more relevant the job, the more text.
- Give distinct descriptions of relevant tasks and experiences.
- Don’t use abbreviations the reader might not know.
- Name months, not only years.
- Be honest and avoid creating suspicion.
What does your resume radiate momentarily? What impression do you want to make? What’s the feedback when others view your resume?
Build a personal resume. After all, it’s your story. Just be sure to pay the right amount of attention to it, because your resume tells more about you then you might realize. And remember, everything is information!
I hope to have given you some guidance with my tips.
Good luck!