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What to Include Into a Work-History Resume to Spice It Up

Written by CB Community

A lot of the time when we are creating our resumes and speedily applying to jobs, we tend to overlook a bunch of content we have included in our resumes.

This content, at times, might not be exclusive to the job you are applying to and that can increase your chances of receiving a rejection.

To avoid getting rejections as much as possible it is always best to create more focus in your resume depending on which job position you are applying to.

If you have a specific resume, then your potential employer is more likely to read it with significantly more concentration and consideration.

Otherwise, there is a possibility of them chucking it in the bin as another one of the many similar resumes.

Not to mention, it might seem as if there was not much effort put into the creation of your resume.

Here are some steps that just might help you out in creating a successful resume to catch the attention of the hiring managers:

Job Requirements

Many a time, people tend to only take the requirements posted on the job posting with a grain of salt and this is where a mistake is being made.

The requirements are the main basis of who they will hire for the position so customizing your resume accordingly is an absolute must.

Aside from the stated prerequisites, try to figure out what else the potential employers might find as a complementary surprise to your already matching requirements.

Important to Read: Usually additional experience can serve as the cherry-on-top complementary experience to whatever the required qualifications you may have already listed. It can then help you potentially rank as a higher-quality candidate.

Target Job

When we are looking for work, we might reach a point where “anything works”, and that is possibly where the spiral of throwing whatever resume at those job postings might start to take place.

While such frustration is understandable, it is not necessarily going to help you land any of those jobs because they will probably be looking for resumes that specifically detail the qualifications that they asked for.

According to Martin Yate, a professional resume writing expert, to correctly specify your resume you should start looking for a number of your target jobs’ postings and identify the common requirements and start building your resume accordingly.

In addition, also pay attention to the specific words and/or phrases used in every job posting as they will help your resume represent you as a higher quality candidate.

Experts Say: As Yate puts it, now you have a good idea of what kind of story the hiring managers are looking for in your resume, along with the words that will increase your visibility in front of potential employers.

Formatting

How you choose to format and highlight your content in your resume matters quite a bit, as recruiters also expect you to have a clean and tidy format to make it easier to absorb the necessary information that they are looking for.

Many hiring managers do not necessarily have the time to be looking at cluttered or overly designed resumes as both types portray a potential con about you.

Creating and building a resume can be a daunting task, especially if you have tried your best to do so many times. It is at such a moment that you should possibly consider employing the help of free online resume builders.

Many have endless professional templates to choose from for various professions and provides you with the assistance of filling it with pre-written phrases to help you along in creating your desired resume.

Not to mention, it guides users with top recruiters’ advice to prevent any common resume mistakes from occurring.

In addition, you can create as many different resumes as you want and store them without any worry of storage taking up space on your computer. Keeping them stored also allows you to make countless edits to all resumes you have created.

Important to Read: If it is cluttered, then it can be interpreted as a potential personality and/or work trait you might have, and if your resume is overly designed but the content is lacking then that can convey you not paying attention to details and completing your work with no real substance.

Work Experience and Evidence

It is an easy task to simply list out your previous work experience thus far and just send in the resume as is.

However, according to Torrens University, if you list how your duties led to your accomplishments and provide them with that ‘hard evidence’ then they are more likely to hold onto your resume as a potential.

Evidence being how you may have increased sales at your company at a certain period or how you might have increased overall efficiency at your previous workplace.

Not to mention, such evidence allows the hiring managers to catch a glimpse of what you might be capable of accomplishing at their company, should they hire you.

Important to Read: Many live by the fact that numbers do not lie especially when you present such data points as your accomplishments.

Wording

How you choose to write and word your resume matters a lot when it comes to catching the eye of your potential employers. According to Peter Vogt, a resume contributor, action verbs are massively helpful in getting across your duties and accomplishments to the recruiters.

Experts Say: Action verbs not only help to convey that you are a proactive individual but also vastly improve the impression your resume gives off, thus making you a higher quality candidate amongst others.

Conclusion

It is always a good decision to customize your resume as much as possible according to the job posting that you are applying to.

Using the job postings’ keywords and phrases is a good way of catching the attention and consideration of your potential employers.

Extra Tip: Customization is what tells hiring managers how much effort you put into creating and sending in your resume to them and always tends to convey if you are a diligent and conscientious person.

About the author

CB Community

Passionate members of the College Basics community that include students, essay writers, consultants and beyond. Please note, while community content has passed our editorial guidelines, we do not endorse any product or service contained in these articles which may also include links for which College Basics is compensated.