
Millicent Safia November 27, 2020 Resume
Another important decision that has to be made about the development of a resume is the format it should follow and the most common approach is use of a chronological style. This approach lists each job in chronological or date order and the most current job is listed at the top of the page. The inherent problem with this type of resume is that the focus is placed on what the candidate is doing now without drawing attention to the skills that have been acquired throughout their entire career.
In writing about each of your previous jobs, discuss your results. Tell about what results were realized because of the work you performed. Be quantitative. Reviewers love to see numbers and results. Tell about how many desktops or users you supported, recount how many databases you administered, show a percentage of application or network uptime you maintained, provide a percent reduction of security incidents you achieved, etc. Get the idea? This is where you impress your reviewer.
Avoid vanilla, blanket statements that cannot be backed up. To accomplish this, you should offer details rather than meaningless phrases like top performer, top achiever, employee of the month, etc. While I am sure these are great accomplishments, you must explain them and tell why and how these recognitions should matter to a new employer. Remember, the actual recognition is secondary to your achievements, a potential employer will care more about why you earned recognition.
Next step, create a bulleted list of accomplishments in each position using the C-A-R method. For each bullet, follow the C-A-R formula: indicate a Challenge you faced, followed by the Action you took, and identify the Results of those actions. You must ensure that the achievements you include are relevant and significant so that a reviewer won’t read it and say ”who cares.” This is so important. Those who write resumes for a living are very skilled at wording these achievements to sound very impressive and make them relevant.
Other misconceptions include the use of an objective on the resume and writing detailed job descriptions. A job objective is usually a statement of what the candidate would like to do or the specific job they are seeking. The reason why this is not needed is that the cover letter should express interest in the position and there is no need to state it again. In addition, many objective statements are so specific that the candidate would be ruled out from other potential positions that may be related to the advertised job. In addition, many jobs I have seen listed on resumes includes wording that either came from job descriptions or have been written like standard wording from these types of descriptions, and that doesn’t necessarily explain the skills the candidate has and may contain jargon that is not easily understood by everyone reading it.
Spend the Most Time on the Most-Read Part of Your Resume – Contrary to what you might think, the most-read part of your resume is not your name. When there are hundreds of resumes to review, names matter little in initial evaluations. The most read part of your resume is your Profile or Experience Summary. If your resume is missing this section, you are losing your best opportunity to create interest. It used to be common to put an Objective at the top of your resume. However, the Profile or Experience Summary section has completely replaced the Objective section. Why? It is a quick 3-4 sentence overview of your qualifications. This acts as an Executive Summary for a reviewer where you clearly point out why you are the best candidate for this specific position. If you don’t generate interest in this section, your chances of further review or even an interview are slim.
Archive
Recent Post
Categories
Most Popular
Latest Review
Latest News
Recent Post
AboutContactCookie PolicyCopyrightPrivacy PolicyTerms of Use
© 2021 Iftheyhadavoice. All rights reserved.