As hiring and appraisal season kicks in, a well-structured and nicely designed resume could be a vital catalyst for you to secure your next career opportunity.
Your resume is required to be devised with a great deal of thought, reflection, and planning. It must keep in mind the language, the visual appeal, brevity, and the search engine optimization-friendly features to get notices, says John Poulose, an alumnus of Harvard Business School and managing director of Eclatmax Training and Consulting, a career and human resources consultancy.
In a chat with Moneycontrol, Poulose lists six points to help job-seekers in building a quality resume that can act as their goodwill ambassador and create the desired impression.
1) Brevity : Understanding that a Resume requires to be a brief document, not more than 2 pages is vital. The objective of a resume is to provide a snapshot of your profile. A Curriculum Vitae (CV), could be created for a detailed insight into your accomplishments.
2. Visual Appeal: A fabulous Resume is soothing to the eye, with the right structure, grammar, and sequence. Infographics can be a part of it, provided it provides an illustrative understanding of your achievements. It is always a delight for a recruiter, hiring manager, or an interviewer to read through an aesthetically designed Resume.
The mechanism termed Applicant Tracking System (ATS) amalgamates various elements of the hiring process, artificial intelligence, and machine learning. This is where the role of experts comes into play. You could consider opting for a customized Resume Development solution, through an expert.3. ATS Compatibility: These days, algorithms embedded in platforms such as job sites and career pages of organizations decide the match of a candidate's Resume vis-a-vis the job description.
In addition to customization and creative design, experts can also make your Resume tech-friendly. Experts have access to tools that can make your Resume - ATS compatible. The best alternative is to entrust your Resume to the expert who can do this and ensure that algorithms do not play spoilsport in your quest for the next best opportunity.
4. Quantitative Metrics: A lot of emphases is placed on the qualitative text, appealing design, and eye-catching infographics, as key elements within an outstanding Resume. In addition to these constituents, a fabulous Resume also requires a critical dimension - quantitive data or numbers. Unless you are restricted by confidentiality norms of your current or previous employer, it would be of value enhancement to include as much numerical data as possible within your Resume.
This data could be the revenue generated for a sales professional, turnaround time for completion of a project for an operations professional or cost optimization for an administration executive. Measurability can add further impact to your Resume.
5. Simplicity: The usage of unnecessary jargon can be avoided. Not everyone understands what an abbreviation stands for. Hence, keeping the content as simple and comprehensible as feasible would be great.
6. Value-addition: The value that you bring in through your skills and experience to your prospective employer, needs to be clearly mentioned early on within the Resume.