I have a sweet tooth. Whenever I am at a grocery store, I love to surf the candy aisle. Specifically the shelves with the chocolates. And the selection of chocolates is vast. There are literally hundreds of options. So many brands, flavors, sizes to choose from. But some chocolates would stand out in the crowd. And what makes some stand out amongst the others is the packaging. Out of the hundreds of selections on offer, I pick up only a few to review and amongst them only one gets bought.
(Side note: The Endangered Species Chocolate company has a great product packaging and story. Try it out if you haven’t.)
If not with chocolates, you would have experienced a similar situation while purchasing something else. Maybe a book, a bottle of wine or a bag of chips.
And every time you are looking to discover something new, the first thing that draws you to the product is its packaging.
Now, why am I talking about product packaging in a post about building great resumes? Well, if you really think about it there are many similarities between them. When searching for a perfect candidate for their job, the companies are the purchasers. The candidate is the product on offer. Instead of the chocolate aisle it is the talent pool. You are the chocolate sitting on the shelf amongst hundreds and thousands of other chocolates on offer. And you have to make sure that you get picked up over others. How do you do it? You do it by smart packaging. Which in this case is your Resume.
I have hired hundreds of candidates and successfully interviewed at top companies like Google, Facebook and Amazon. I have seen far too many resumes that can be improved drastically with some simple changes. I am sharing some tips that will hopefully help you improve or refine your resume and land that dream job.
1. Don’t try to please everyone
Google receives more than 50 thousand resumes every week. That’s more than 2.5 million applications in a year. The ones who get selected are specialists. So, don’t build a generic resume. The problem with them is that they will show up in every recruiter’s search but won’t get selected by anyone. When a recruiter reads your resume they should be clear about your expertise. It will make you stand out amongst others. So, if you are looking for a job as a mobile developer don’t highlight how you have done ‘some’ backend programming.
2. Make it crispy
On average, recruiters and hiring managers spend 6 seconds on a candidate’s profile. Yes, 6 seconds. So you have to make sure every section on your resume is meaty and catches the attention. Be ruthless in editing out any fluff. Your resume should have the absolute highlights of your career. Some other best practices are - write in simple english, don't use flashy words, use active voice instead of passive, stay away from highly subjective narrative.
3. Stay away from creative and flashy formats
Unless you are a designer, creative and flashy formats in your resume does not achieve much. They look pretty and smart but they are not functional. No one selects a software engineer or a nurse or a marketing professional because they had 2 pictures and pie charts.
4. One Page is better than five
Today’s world has a short attention span. You need to build a resume that takes this important human behavior into consideration. No one reads a 5 page resume. You should start with a 5 page resume and then compress it down to a 1-Pager. What you will be left with is a strong, tight representation of your work that recruiters will actually read. You may think that all the great work you have done can’t be compressed into one page but trust me that you can. If you need help compressing, please read point #1 and #2.
5. Tell a story
Use the SBI structure for all your narrative. Short for Situation Behavior and Impact. This is the simplest structure to convey a successful outcome but it is surprising how many resumes lack it. When writing about your experience, describe the project (situation), what you did (behavior) and what was the result (impact). If you can follow this structure then every accomplishment in your resume will read as a story and resonate with the recruiter and hiring team.
6. Brag but Don’t lie
Bragging on your resume is fine and at times desirable. After all if you don't upsell yourself then who will? But don't make the mistake of outright lying. You may get an interview call based on lies but you will not make it through the interviews. Nothing’s worse than not able to back up what you write on your resume. You will waste your time and most probably get into the “Don't reach out to this candidate again” list and screw up your future chances.
Remember that the ultimate goal of a resume is not to just get you to the next step of the hiring process but to actually land you the job offer.
7. Keep it consistent
If you are actively searching for a job then you probably have your resume on multiple job boards such as LinkedIn and Monster. Ensure that the information on all the job boards are consistent with each other. And if you have social media profiles make sure they are up to date as well. What you don’t want is these job portals having conflicting data about your work experience.
8. Show your passion
Your own unique self is your biggest selling point which no other candidate can copy. Be unperturbed to show your passions. Great companies value uniqueness and a diverse workforce. If you have uncommon passions which can be relatable to a work situation then mention it in the resume. If you have personal projects that you work on the side then showcase them in your profile. Employers look for ownership and drive in their future hires, so these qualities can help you stand out. And if you are involved in volunteering for various causes then talk about them in your resume. Top companies are becoming more and more socially responsible and they want to have employees who share similar values.
9. Iterate and Refine
A great resume is a work in progress. Keep improving it. Keep updating it with new achievements, highlights of new work, new skills acquired. If you get rejected based on a resume submission, try to understand what lacked in your resume and try to fix that aspect.
Investing time to make a kick-ass resume is a no brainer. It can lead you to life-changing opportunities. I hope these tips were useful and would help you land your next dream gig.
If you enjoyed this post you may like my post on 6 tips for a killer “tell me about yourself” response for your next job interview
I am a software professional and I write about various topics. If you liked this post please consider signing up to my email list here — https://bit.ly/3fu0r0y
My personal blog is www.ankur.blog