Resumes can be tricky, and with hiring managers and recruiters taking an average of 6 seconds to scan and judge a resume, it is important to make a great first impression. I recently read an article suggesting that if your resume cannot be easily skimmed, it is essentially worthless. Working in the recruiting industry myself, I wholeheartedly agree. If I can’t easily pick out the skills and qualifiers I’m looking for in a candidate, I’ll move on to the next one.
To make things easier for you, I’ve rounded up my top 5 must haves on your resume. These include the most important information and aspects of a resume which any hiring manager and/or recruiter will be looking for. Obviously there are many different ways and styles to write a resume, but these aspects are crucial. Below are my top 5 must haves on your resume.
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Have an aesthetically pleasing and clear header. A good rule of thumb is to have your name in a bigger font than the rest of the contact info, and to keep it simple. A cluttered header sets the tone for the rest of the resume, so forget about adding in any extra information. All you really need is name, phone number, email, and city/state. If you’re comfortable adding in your address, that’s fine too. Don’t add excess information such as your LinkedIn profile link etc.
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Have a skills list at the top of your resume. If you’re using a headlining statement/objective, this should be the first thing under your that. If you aren’t using an objective, this should be the first thing under your header. Whether you label it “Skills Matrix” or “Summary of Qualifications,” or “Summary of Skills”, this is one of the most crucial sections of your resume. It is the first thing hiring managers and recruiters look at for qualifying skills, so make sure you include all of your strong suits. This is where you want to highlight your best aspects and what makes you a good candidate.
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Make sure there is a good balance between text and white space. When writing a resume, one of the most important factors is readability. As stated previously, if you can’t skim it, why bother? How you make sure your resume is skimable is with white space. I don’t want to read a resume that looks like a text book. Take away the clutter and spread your info out. It’s better to have a resume that is 2 pages than 1 extremely dense page that is hard to read. In our society, with so many internships and short term jobs/experiences, it can be hard to condense a resume to one page. If you can do that and still keep the readability, that’s great, but if not, don’t stress about it. A good trick to condensing a resume is to list out unrelated jobs/experiences without including job descriptions. This will show that you have consistently been working, but will reduce the amount of space unrelated jobs take up on your document.
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Utilize informative but concise job descriptions. You want to make sure your job descriptions are informative and representative of the work you did, however it’s important to keep limit the unnecessary details. A good rule of thumb is to have a 1-2 sentence general description of your work, and put job duties/achievements in bullet point form. Again, make sure it is readable and easy to spot achievements.
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Highlight any certifications/specialized training. If you have any specialized training or certifications, be proud of them and flaunt them! I never understand why people camouflage such sought after skills into the body of a resume. Add it into the skills matrix at the top and make sure you include a “Certifications” and/or “Specialized Training” section on your resume to really make these stand out.
Resumes can be written a plethora of different ways, but including these top 5 must haves on your resume will ensure that your document has the most pertinent information to make sure you get noticed!