1. Use your Preferred Job or Career Title as the Resume Heading
You ought to know that a recruiter spends an average of 6 seconds reviewing a resume. Many of them now utilize resume parsing software to get the most suitable candidates. So you have to make your resume striking enough to capture and sustain the attention of recruiters. One way to do this is through your heading. Use your preferred career or job title as the heading of your resume.
This will help you communicate what your resume is all about to the recruiter. When writing a resume for a particular job, use the job designation from the job posting you want to apply for. Also, ensure your relevant employment background and achievements aligns with your resume title.
2. Back Up Your Achievements with Facts
Listing your accomplishments on your resume is a good way to make a good impression on prospective employers. However, it’s not advisable to list your accomplishments without backing them up with facts. An accomplishment that’s not backed up with fact will appear vague, and this can affect the recruiter’s perception of you.
A good way of validating your accomplishments in your resume is by adding numbers or writing the precise results of your endeavors.
3. Utilize Proper Spacing
This is an important tip, so you avoid stuffing words on your resume. When used properly, proper spacing helps you present relevant content in a very readable format. No matter how relevant your job experiences, accomplishments, or skills may be, it will mean little or nothing if they don’t appeal to whoever is reading your resume.
Ensure there’s the spacing between each word, line, bullet point, and paragraph to enhance its legibility.
4. Limit Your Employment Background to a Maximum of 20 Years
A lot of resumes have their work history pegged between 15 and 20 years. Several recruiters believe that such employment background is enough experience to land you that job interview. Avoid listing your employment history beyond 20 years, especially if it’s not relevant to the job you’re applying for. Doing so can lower your chances of getting an interview.
5. Use Action Verbs
The best place to execute this tip in your resume is where you’re listing your accomplishments. Action verbs give the reader of your resume a strong impression of your expertise or skill. Use words such as designed, trained, led, and planned. Be creative and use variations of these action verbs. One final thing- don’t repeat closely-related action verbs on the same page of your resume.
6. Limit Your Resume to a Maximum of 2 Pages
This is key to sustaining the interest of your recruiter. No matter how detailed your employment background may be, the relevant content shouldn’t exceed a couple of pages. Anything more than this, and you risk boring your recruiter.
