Make a good first impression with a stellar resume!
You’ve found your dream role – now what?
Put your resume to work!
Your resume is the first thing representing you and your qualifications, and helps you stand out from the crowd.
Resume tips:
Spend time on your resume. When job searching, it’s worth investing the time required to prepare a strong resume, and to have multiple people proof your resume. Many times, the presentation and content of your resume determines if a company will move forward with your application.
Always have your most updated contact information listed on your resume. Your name, telephone number, and email address must be listed at the top of the page.
Remember not to use a work email, and think about the name of your email. If you have a silly or unprofessional email address, create a new one to utilize for your resume and applications.
List a professional summary highlighting your career objectives and successes.
This can also be a quick introduction highlighting who you are, and keeping it short & concise as hiring teams will want to get to the main points in your experience. We recommend a personalized summary vs. an objective line.
List your education before your work experience. Your work experience should be in reverse chronological order, with your current or most recent job listed at the top.
Make sure to list any promotions you may have received, and specify the timing. A common mistake is to use the same title throughout your entire tenure, but if you started as a Coordinator and left as a Supervisor you will want to show this, as it proves your ability to promote or take on different functions.
Include start and end dates for each position. Include both the month and the year for your start and end dates. Leaving out the months can look like information is being hidden.
Use strong action verbs (‘led’, ‘planned’, ‘organized’) to showcase your responsibilities and include numbers (‘increased sales by 50%’) wherever possible.
Use and confirm correct past and present tense. Any position you currently hold should have action verbs in current tense. Any past positions should reflect past tense. Ex: ‘Manage’ for present role, and ‘Managed’ for a former position you no longer hold.
Don’t use personal pronouns like ‘I’, ‘Me’ or ‘My’.
Customize your resume for the role to which you’re applying. Review the job description and edit your resume to highlight skills you hold which match the requirements, including any technical skills needed for the role, and keywords from the job description.
List accomplishments unique to you. For example, what were your contributions, projects and results? Don’t only list job responsibilities common to the job title you held.
Include any licenses or certifications that are relevant to the role you are applying for. Volunteer and other unpaid jobs also are great to list.
Keep the visual aesthetics clean and simple when formatting your resume. You do not want to distract the reader with things like unnecessary symbols, pictures, different font styles, color and sizes.
Keep your resume to 1-2 pages.
Focus on keeping things recent and relevant; this will help in decreasing space, especially on experience from the past.
Helpful Links for Resume Creations and Updates: