A sure way of getting to the first round of interview
07th June ,2007
Not getting enough interview calls? Not happy with your resume. Read on to find out how you can improve your resume and also get a call for an interview.
5. Sell the benefits of your skills
Most resumes provide a list of duties that each applicant has been responsible for without explaining the benefit of those skills to the employers. For example, a secretary's resume might state she can type 80 wpm and is extremely accurate. This statement lacks an explanation of how her typing speed and accuracy benefit an employer's bottom line. The real benefit is that the employee can produce more work and ultimately save the employer money. A better statement for this person's resume would be:
Selling The Benefits of Skills
Achieved top production volume by maintaining high degree of accuracy with typing speed at 80 wpm.
Cut labor expense over Rs.80,000 annually by eliminating the need for part-time word processing staff.
6. Pay attention to minor details
This includes spell checks, including/excluding miscellaneous information, systematic presentation and prioritize content of your resume.
Spell Checks
With so many word processing tools available at your disposal, checking spellings and grammatical syntax of your resume has become easy. Always run a spell check on your resume before you send your resume to the prospective employer.
Including/excluding Miscellaneous information
It is very important that you identify miscellaneous information to include and exclude. I have seen many resumes where height is mentioned, don't mention such information unless you are applying for a job where such vital statistics are important e.g. to become a Air Hostess or Model.
Mentioning date of birth is also important, some employers look for such information as they have a preset age bracket for some positions. So, by providing such information would be helpful from the very onset of your resume reaching their mail boxes.
Systematic presentation
A well written and systematic resume is highly appreciated by employers since they get the information that they are looking at in an instant. Over a period of time with experience looking at a resume employers are able to identify important sections of the resume by just having a glance at your resume and a systematically written resume is highly appreciated.
Prioritize Content
Another big mistake that job seekers make is to list very important data in the lower sections of their job descriptions. As you compile statements for your resume, prioritize them by importance, impressiveness and relevance to the job you want. Remember that a strong statement which uses power words and quantifies will affect every statement under it.
