Resume (or CV) is probably one of the most important documents you can have. It's the passport when you want to find your dream job, and a properly written resume is your visa. In two words: resume is your work and skills history summary.
Your resume has only one purpose: to help an employer find out whether you're a good fit or not for a role. It has its own structure and style, so the more you follow the rules, the more are your chances to be invited to interview.
So let's find out what are the main points of a strong resume!
Size
1 or 2 pages. Recruiters only have about 7–10 seconds to check your resume on average, so no one will check all 10 pages of your most detailed work history in most of the cases. This is why 1 page is just perfect. Instead of many pages, you can stand out with different page mock-ups to fit all the data or remove less relevant information. Point out the most important information and your selling points, and don't worry: you can always tell more in an interview if it's relevant and can be told quickly.
Structure
Headline - first section in every CV, here you write your full name, desired position, contact information and links to your LinkedIn, portfolio or blog.
Summary (optional) - some recruiters like to start from the summary and read about your main skills and experience. It's not a required section, but it's useful for most of the cases.
Work experience - the most important resume section because here you describe all the relevant places where you have worked and what achievements you accomplished in there. Usually, you specify the company where you have worked, time period and what achievements you accomplished or at least your key responsibilities. Aim to fill 12–20 bullets in the description.
Education - if you're an experienced professional, your Education section can be very short. You can just include the names of the colleges/institutions you've attended along with your major. Also, you can write one bullet on your most interesting achievement: like top place in Olympiad, scientific publication, high GPA score, etc.
Skills - skills sections is keywords section, so here you just list all the skills you have. At first glance, it sounds hard because everyone has numerous skills, from cooking to designing rockets. The easiest way to know what skills are relevant and what are not:
- At first - open all vacancies for your position;
- At second - build a words cloud from requirements you can find in descriptions;
- At third - just write the most frequent skills which you have.
Style
Document should be ATS and human ready. It should be simple with clear and concise language and page mark up. Be sure to use only PDF/DOC format. It will simplify the job for ATS parser to get all the data correctly and match it with vacancy description so you will be on the top of the list, and it will simplify recruiters life when he starts reading and matching it. Try to avoid buzzwords and clichés, align dates in reverse chronological order (latest data goes first) and proofread your resume to be sure that everything is consistent.
Conclusion
Resume is important for almost every one, and I shared all the main points of a strong resume which I discovered from my resume writing experience so you can create your filter crashing resume.
In the next article, I will share my own strategy for writing a really great resume and give you some advices to make it flawless.
For those who didn't know, I've started my own private consultations! More than that, I regularly help people in creating good resumes from scratch or using existing ones. So check out my Telegram channel for more information!
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