Resume Writing
3 Ways to Improve Your Resume Writing
Creating or updating your resume is detailed work and can be daunting because it involves remembering critical or relevant aspects of your work experience over the years and providing context and outcomes related to the job role you are applying for.
Your resume is essential to your career portfolio. To show your experience and introduce yourself to a recruiter, you must review the job description, learn about the company, and maybe even do informational interviews, depending on the role.
All this research and intelligence gathering will give you additional knowledge. Three ways to include this knowledge and improve your resume are to detail relevant work experience first, with a related summary, and establish everything else after.
Relevant Work Experience
For example, you can start with the Work Experience section first. Once the details are aligned, you can develop a summary to support your experience.
Write strong statements that show your wins based on the projects or tasks you carried out for each position with each company in your work history. Apply relevant keywords from the job description where they fit to show that you align with the needs of the business. You may not be able to quantify every outcome, but include challenges to give context and relevance. Use words to describe your actions to make your resume come alive. Repeat for each work experience. Here is an example of a customer service retail position:
Example 1:
Managed store inventory, stocking shelves with needed items.
Example 2:
Managed store inventory to minimize risks of product shortage. Scanned new inventory items weekly and matched SKUs with corporate records to prevent stolen or missing items, ensuring 99% accuracy of in-store inventory.
Related Summary
The summary shows a brief paragraph about you and related accomplishments you have described in the work experience section. Writing a summary is your opportunity to hook the reader on the authenticity of your brand based on the results you have accomplished in your work experience to get them interested in learning more about you. Anything you write in the summary must naturally expand to your work experience section to continue telling your story. Here are two examples based on our Customer Service Retail Representative position:
Example 1:
To obtain a role in customer service to support customers' needs and help the business grow.
Example 2:
I am an Empathetic Customer Representative seeking to use my analytical and problem-solving skills to meet customer needs and increase store profit.
Everything else
The above two areas require the most focus and time. Everything else in the sections listed below can be completed quickly. You can use the appropriate resume format to complete information for these areas.
Skills
Education
Certification
Volunteer Activities
Speaking Opportunities
Other
Wrapping Up
For every job you apply to, ensure your resume shows relevance. You do not want to waste your or the recruiter's time with unwanted information.
Review your resume for grammatical context and flow and have someone else review it for good measure.
Create a tracking document to distribute, monitor, and measure success.
Stay in gratitude for all experiences.
