How to Make Your Resume Stand Out 6 Tips - Career Sidekick

How to Make Your Resume Stand Out 6 Tips - Career Sidekick How to Make Your Resume Stand Out: 6 Tips Resume/CV / https://www.edenscott.com/blog Having a resume that stands out is extremely importantin a competitive job market like the one were in right now.And a few small changes can make thedifference between getting a phone interview and never receiving a response after you click submit.So here are 6 ideas for how to make your resume stand out. Well go by section-by-section and cover the best way to make each of your resume sections stand out best.6 Ways To Make Your Resume Stand Out (By Section)1. Resume Contact InfoWhile this first section may seem like a no-brainer, it is the very first thing the readers sees â€" and the choices you make about these seemingly minute details will go toward making a great first impression.In addition to your first and last name, city, state and zip, if you have any licenses or certifications that are relevant to your career aspirations, be sure to include the acronym at the end of the name. This way the reader doesn’t need to wait until Page 2 to discover you possess must-have credentials.As an example, if you were looking for a role in public accounting, holding a CPA is noteworthy and likely a hiring prerequisite. Therefore, it should be included at the end of your name (i.e. Mick Jagger, CPA)Show that you have adapted to the times by including a web-based email (i.e., replace AOL with Gmail), and include the link to your LinkedIn profile. If you have other social media sites that align with your career hopes, be sure to include links to these as well (i.e., Twitter, Instagram).2. Your HeadlineSimilar to how a headline tells us what the story is about when we are reading the news, a headline (also known as a career title) placed below the contact sections accomplishes the same thing.Are you a Program Executive or a Legal Compliance Director, Product Development Manager or a CIO? Make sure the headline reflects the kinds of roles you are targeting â€" and remember to customize where appropriate.By tweaking just a few words, you can quickly transform your headline to show you have an industry niche or that you are industry-neutral.EXAMPLE: “Financial Services IT Program Executive Manager” v. “IT Program Executive.”3. Your Resume SummaryOften called a Branding Paragraph, the summary section of a resume offers insight into how you are ideally suited for a role. Doing a great job writing this section is one of the best ways to make your resume stand out.My first recommendation is to skip generic language that often includes rich adjectives. Phrasings like “strong track record of success” and “experienced professional” can (and do) describe many. Theyre over-used and have become pretty meaningless.Replace this language with a paragraph that describes strengths unique to you (or specific accomplishments, such as experience managing production teams of 50-100), and weave in language that aligns with job postings, to help the reader connect the dots that you are a perfect fit!4. SkillsA resume skills section, in many ways, serves the same purpose as call-out boxes in newspaper or magazine articles. Both allow specific details to stand out from the rest in an easily scannable manner.This section should include industry- or role-specific skills, much of which can be located in job postings of interest!Dont just list all of your skills here though, pick the ones that are most relevant to the job. Tailoring your resume is crucial, so read this article if youre not sure how. Its better to have sixhighly-relevant skills listed, rather than 25 skills where some are relevant but some are not. Keep it hyper-focused.This is one of the most important things you can realize for how to make your resume stand out. Its very rare that companies want to hire a generalist. They prefer an expert or specialist 80-90% of the time. So show them that.5. ExperienceWhen it comes to skimming through your work history, readers tend to look at where and when you worked and in what role. From there they wil l breeze through just a bullet or two on the first read, and save the rest for second, deeper read â€"providing you have made the first-read cut!Increase readability by replacing long paragraphs with 1- and 2-line bullets that highlight your achievements. Skip the adjectives, qualifiers and lead-ins and make sure each bullet leads with an achievement. Here’s an example:“Grew territory 5X by developing and executing a strategy overhaul.” v. “Developed and executed a strategy overhaul that grew territory 5X.”The first bullet point is a better way to make your resume stand out, because it mentions the achievement upfront (grew territory). Notice how its specific too. Youre not just saying you grew the territory youre saying by how much.Specific facts and details are absolutely essentialfor writing a resume that stands out and grabs attention immediately.Lastly â€" try and avoid bullet overkill. Five bullets are about the max a skim reader can handle without the information be ing broken down into sub-headers. So limit it to five and your resume will stand out and be read more, and skimmed less.6. EducationWhether you went to school 20 years ago, or just took a few classes…readers want to know in what capacity you pursued your interests academically.If you are using a newly-earned degree to springboard into a new career, lead off with your education and be sure to highlight courses, papers and projects of interest.If youre already established in your career, you can put education further down on your resume, but dont neglect this section. Its an opportunity to show your academic abilities and your ability to learn, AND it can be a conversation-starter in the interview if the hiring manager sees you went to the same school as them, or if you studied something similar to them, or if you achieved something interesting in your academic career that sparks their interest and makes them ask about it.If you follow the tips above for the six sections we talked a bout, your resume will stand out, get more interviews, and stay out of the junk pile so you can find a job much faster! If you have a question, leave a comment below.More Tips for How to Make Your Resume Stand OutSo, we just looked at how to make each important area of your resume stand out, but there are also a couple of general tips to follow throughout your whole resume.If you do these things, your resume will stand out even further from other job seekers.Use plenty of white space, bulleted lists, etc., to make your resume visually appealing and easier to read. Avoid long, dense paragraphs without sufficient spacing.Use a modern but simple, non-distracting resume template and formatting. This article will help you with how to format your resume.Dont make your resume any longer than it needs to be. For some people, this means two pages; for others, it means one page. The key is to never add extra info just for the sake of lengthening your resume. You will make your resume stand ou t more by only putting the most relevant, important information and then stopping.Put a link to your LinkedIn profile in your contact information section. This will show hiring managers youre tech-savvy and up-to-date on current best practices in your career.Leave references and an objective off of your resume; these are out-dated and wont impress employers.Focus on the top third of your resume. This is where most of the readers attention will be spent and is where you need to make sure youre making the best possible impression with your resume.These last two tips on the list above come from a separate article that might also help you: 7 steps for how to improve your resume.The steps and tips above are how to make your resume stand out to employers so you can get more interviews. As a next step, open up your own resume and start looking for ways to implement these ideas!About this guest author:In need of some career advice, a refreshed resume or rebranded LinkedIn?Asthe founder and chief writer atVirginia Franco Resumes, I offer customized executive resume and LinkedIn profile writing services for the 21st century job seeker. I would be happy to chat!