Hey, listen up. If your current resume is not landing you the interviews you really want, or if you’re having a hard time selling your skills and abilities to your future employer, tune in because in this video, I’m sharing a simple, easy-to-follow resume strategy that has helped thousands of job seekers go from overwhelmed and overlooked to now working in positions. They love making more than they thought was possible, just like David, who, before learning about these simple strategies, had searched for a new position for 13 months after putting some key pieces into place. He landed a wonderful new position, making more than he thought was possible, all while doing something he excels at now. If you want results like this, watch until the end, because I’m sharing where you can grab a free resume template and example that you can download and customize right now to help you land your next big career opportunity.
Hey, I’m Heather, a career strategy expert. And on this channel, I help professionals just like you build your personal brand so that you can land your dream job and grow in a field you love. So, if you’re new to my channel, hit the subscribe button down below and don’t forget to hit the bell notification while you’re at it. So you’re notified when I publish a new video or host live training every week here on my channel. Let’s get real for a second— writing a resume is awkward. It’s not easy to brag about your skills, your experience, and even your accomplishments. To prove that you are the best possible candidate for the position, not to mention if you’re switching careers or if you lack formal experience.
But here’s the thing: there is a way to effectively capture your talents and expertise and present them in a way that gets a hiring manager or recruiter to take action and invite you in for an interview. In this video, I’m sharing. Five steps that will simplify the entire resume writing process. At the end, you’ll have clarity on what you need to do to make your resume even better, and you’ll be well on your way to your next big career opportunity. Now, if you’re excited for this week’s video, hit the like button down below, and let’s dive into the first step to write an amazing resume that gets you hired. That step is to create a clear structure. You need a resume that is simple and easy to navigate.
Studies suggest that hiring officials spend just a few seconds looking at your resume, so you need to entice them to stick around. The best way to do this is with engaging content and clear, concise section headings. Now I’m going to share the main sections every great resume must have, but I’m also to share some optional sections. We’ll then take a closer look at what to include in each area with some examples. At the top of your resume, start with your contact information: your name, phone number, city, and state. You don’t need to include your entire mailing address for security reasons. You’ll include a professional-sounding email address and a link to your custom LinkedIn URL. Now, after your contact information, you’ll include a career summary, which I’ll explain more about in just a second.
You’ll then add some work experience. Followed by your education and training, and then a technical skills section. Now, I love a really good technical skills section because it lets an employer know that you’re keeping up with technology and the times. For example, conference video calls and project management tools are more important than ever. Now, don’t worry if you don’t know… no one does. But showcasing on your resume that you know how to use tools like Zoom, Slack, and similar apps can go a long way. A long way. The most important thing to remember when creating a clear, concise resume structure is to include sections that highlight your best possible self.
For example, if you’re fresh out of college, you don’t have much work history yet. So you can include things like internships or other relevant experience. You can also add supplemental sections, such as extracurricular activities or academic achievements. On the other hand, if you’ve been in the workforce for 10 years or longer, your work experience section will make up the bulk of your resume. You may not even need to include a core competency section, which we’ll discuss in just a second. Now, don’t be afraid to get a little creative here. If you’re struggling to flesh out your resume or you want to draw attention to something, you can add an entirely new section. This might include volunteer experience, professional memberships, certifications, language competencies, community work, and even honors and awards.
Now, comment below with one additional section, beyond any education or work experience, that you would like to add to your resume. And hey, remember to keep watching to learn where you can grab your free resume template and example. Let’s jump into the site. The first step to writing a great resume is to include a powerful career summary. Remember earlier when I said you only had a few seconds to convince the hiring official to invite you in for the interview? Well, this is the section where the magic happens. Please tune in here because your career summary is one of the most important parts of your resume. The summary is the perfect place for you to stand out and clearly show what you have to offer.
So don’t hold back here. Start your career summary with a title. This can be the title of the position you are applying for, or something very similar, or even your current job title. Directly under the title, include three key skills. These key skills should be carefully chosen; selected; they should be among your greatest strengths and assets, but should also directly relate to the new position. These are skills highly emphasized in the job description, and that align with your own abilities. Now, here’s an example. I’m applying for a senior business analyst position. I would place the term ‘senior business analyst’ in the title section of my resume. I would then place the skills, client management, business operations, and process design in the skills section on the resume.
Keep in mind the three skills I mentioned here must be in the job description and be skills I already possess. This information tells the hiring official what position you’re applying for and what they should expect. to see in the rest of your resume. It makes their job easier by eliminating the guesswork. After the initial title, you’ll include three to four sentences that explain how your profession background training or experience makes you the perfect candidate your goal here is to show how you can help solve some of the company’s biggest pain points now remember your not listing what you’re looking for in your ideal position your career summary is all about the company and their needs so avoid saying things like looking to grow my industry or wanting to take the next step in my career.
You need to demonstrate that you are the right person for the position. Now, comment below with your dream job title. You’re doing that. Remember that the career summary is a great place to address any job-related changes. For example, you may have been furloughed or permanently laid off due to your company’s downsizing. Or you’re one of the millions of professionals who changed careers as part of the great resignation. Use your career summary to explain how you’re looking to use your skills to transition into a new industry or job. Now, before we move into the third step to writing a great resume, there are a few optional parts of your career summary you should know. About. The first is a career highlight section.
This is a bulleted list of your proudest career achievements. This falls directly below your three to four paragraphs. Think of all the great things you’ve accomplished in different positions or in your professional experience, like projects, awards, and even specialized training that make you who you are and what you have to offer. Use these accomplishments as your career highlights to get your future employer excited to learn more about you. Now, I’m going to share something I haven’t shared in one of these resume-writing videos before: pick highlights that will be career stories you would like to share in an interview. And if you need help prepping for your interview, take a look at this video, where you’ll learn how to answer the most difficult interview questions.
I’ll also link the video down below. Keep in mind, a career highlight section works best for professionals who’ve been in the workforce for at least five to seven years. If you don’t have much work experience, add a core competency section to your resume. Not only will this impress an employer, but it can even help your resume make it past the applicant tracking system, which we’ll talk more about in just a bit. The core competency section combines your hard and soft skills that directly relate to the position. So let’s use our senior business analyst example again. Core competencies for a person applying for this position include project documentation, communication processes, customer and supplier relations, and business and systems analysis.
The idea here is to shoot for two to three lines of skills that show how your expertise and knowledge align with the position. Now, if you have a special competency you can add to your resume, share it in the comments below. If you’re enjoying this video so far, be sure to hit the like button down below. It will tell me to create more videos like this for you. Let’s jump into the third step to write a great resume: include quantifiable, results-driven achievement statements. I know that’s a mouthful, so let’s break down what this means exactly. You want your resume to include not only the tasks you’ve performed, but also the results you’ve achieved. Anytime you can quantify your results, you make your resume even stronger.
So what kinds of things can you quantify? Here are just a few examples: Increased sales, decreased costs, improved customer ratings. number of new clients acquired, number of new team members onboarded, number of patients you cared for, new processes that created a faster or more efficient workflow, increased social media followers, increased marketing conversion, and the list goes on and on. Now, let me give you a quick example here. You could say, ‘managed an Instagram account for a small clothing retail company,’ or you could say, ‘increased Instagram following by 50% within six months and months leading to increased revenue and new partnership opportunities. Do you see how powerful the second example is? It not only tells what you did but also your success and the result of your actions.
Here’s a quick formula to help you create your own results-driven achievement statements. Start with an action verb, then describe the task, and finish off with the results. You could use the acronym ATR— action, task, result— to help you remember how to create these statements. Use this example for every bullet point on your resume, and do your very best to make them follow this formula. Bringing in quantifiable metrics wherever you can. And hey, just a quick heads-up: if you’re looking to connect with other professionals just like you, jump in and join my free private community on Facebook, The Career Club. Online to ask questions about anything career-related, get feedback, share your wins, and build relationships. We now have over 12,000 amazing professionals in this community.
I’ll place a special link for you down below. Now, the fourth step to write a great resume that gets you hired is to make it readable. Not only do you need to make your resume readable for tracking systems, but you also need to make it readable for hiring officials. Let’s first talk about making it human-readable. Employers scan through resumes so quickly; you need to make a good impression fast. Don’t make them hunt for information. This means using generous white space, clear headings, consistent formatting, a font that is neither too big nor too small, and no typos or misspellings. Let’s talk about what makes your resume readable by applicant tracking systems. It’s pretty simple. Avoid columns, pictures, graphs, charts, and tables.
Instead, use clear section headings (like the ones we just talked about), paragraphs, and bullet points to present your relevant career history. And if you don’t know what an ATS is, it’s a software application that scans your resume to ensure it contains specific keywords and formatting before passing it on to the next round. Many employers use ATS systems to prequalify candidates and weed out applicants who don’t meet basic criteria. That means that even if you’re highly qualified, if your resume doesn’t pass ATS, it may not get in front of the right person. The good news is that if you follow these simple steps, your resume will be ATS-friendly. Now I have a video that goes into more detail on how to make your resume ATS-friendly. ATS-friendly. I’ll link it down below.
And hey, in just a second, I’m going to share where you can grab your free resume template and example. So stick around for that. Now, the fifth step to write a great resume that gets you hired is to customize it. Let me explain. It’s a good idea to keep a master resume to track everything you’ve done in your career, but you need to tailor every resume you send out before you apply to any new position. And don’t worry, you don’t need to overhaul or restructure the entire thing every time. Sometimes, a few simple tweaks can make a big difference. One of the best ways to tailor your resume is to update your professional summary by changing your title and keywords to match the position better.
For example, you may be a nonprofit manager with experience creating and running Facebook campaigns to boost donations. If you’re applying for a job as a social media manager, you will want to change your title and skills to reflect your experience in this area. Instead of calling yourself a nonprofit manager, try social media strategist or social media marketer, and explain how your efforts led to increased funding. Your resume should be tailored to the industry and to each specific company. Study the job posting carefully to identify the words or phrases the company consistently uses. If you see the word ‘customer support’ mentioned three or four times in a job posting, you definitely need to mention it in your resume.
Another way to tailor your resume for different positions is to rearrange your bullet points. Here’s an example. Let’s say you’re applying for a customer service job. If you’ve ever brought in new clients, helped resolve issues over the phone, or improved customer satisfaction scores, make sure that is extremely clear on your resume. That might mean moving some of your bullet points to make them stand out. Remember, what’s highest on your resume is what people see first. So, draw attention to what’s most important by putting it at the top. By tailoring your resume with a strong title and an engaging professional summary, you can capture the hiring manager’s attention and encourage them to keep reading.
Now, I actually have a bonus step for you when it comes to writing a great resume that gets you hired: make it relevant. The workforce has undergone significant changes over the past few years. Gone are the days when someone would stay at the same job with the same company for 30 years. Today, it’s normal for professionals to change positions and even change industries frequently. Add to that a global disaster, and it’s no wonder that folks are often overhauling their entire careers. If your job has been disrupted in the last year or two, or if you had to pivot into a new line of work, you don’t need to be embarrassed. Millions of people are in this. boat, so you’re in great company.
The great news is that unemployment gaps don’t mean that your career is over, but it’s extremely important to show employers how you are using that time to stay relevant. Did you take on any part-time or seasonal work to help you pay your bills while you were between jobs? Don’t be afraid to put positions on your resume. That may be considered entry-level, even if you’re an advanced professional. For example, you may have driven for Uber or delivered Amazon packages because your hours were cut in your permanent… position. These jobs can help you develop skills that could prove valuable to an employer. Skills like management, logistics and supply chain, customer service, and even communication. Other ways that you can show you’ve kept yourself relevant are by mentioning any freelance or contract work you’ve done.
You should also include any online courses you’ve taken or volunteer work you’ve done in your community. These things show employers that you’re adaptable and that you take the initiative to better yourself professionally. They show that you can embrace change even when it’s hard and that you would be a great addition to their team. And here’s the thing, as more and more work is remote these days, employers want to see that you can use new technology to communicate with your team and get work done. Just like what we talked about earlier. I promised you a free resume and template you can download now and customize for your next job. Go to Heatheraustin. com/dot-online/slash-resume to grab this resource. And hey, if you want to learn how to create a LinkedIn profile that attracts hiring managers and recruiters, take a look at this video. Right here. If you like this video, be sure to hit the thumbs-up button down below. Be sure to subscribe to this channel for more videos just like this. I’ll see you in the next video.
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