You may have noticed on my Social Media channels recently that after 14 years of being in the same primary setting, after the summer holidays I’m going to be working in a different primary setting. Fortunately, I didn’t have to get writing a resume as I’m transferring within the Trust I work for.
Resumes, CV’s, whatever you like to call them, can often inspire a sense of dread when it comes to developing ours. How are you to collate all the information together? How are you to avoid going on tangents about your experience, especially when you might have a penchant for the written word? How can you promote yourself when this feels like the most unnatural thing in the world to achieve?
Well, thankfully, writing experience can actually help you with this effort. On top of that, it can be important to know how to keep only the important details, and eschew the rest. We hope that no matter what job you’re applying for, be that a creative role, a calculative role, or perhaps a studying opportunity, that you are able to keep your resume tight and the first vanguard of your suitability.
This is where real, practical advice is the most useful. So, let’s avoid wasting any more time and help you to this end:
Keep It To One Page
Keeping your resume to one page only is an essential part of having it read in the first place. Think about it. An employer likely has hundreds of applications to sort through, and those that will take more than a minute to skim over and absorb will likely be placed in the bin. This is why it’s important to write a custom CV for each job application you make. Keep the relevant facts there, the details compact and worthwhile. If you can do that, you have a much better chance of being selected. List your most important experience. If you have qualifications after high-school level, only list those in your education section. Don’t write at length about how you love mountain climbing or hiking. An achievement, such as a black belt in a martial art, is a much more impressive detail. Using the best PDF editor for Mac, this should take no time at all.
List Practical Achievements
Don’t write about how well you got on with your previous team. Employers want to know the achievements and contributions you made, alongside your roles at the firm. What was your best sales figure? When did you solve an issue that was causing a problem for your team? Keep these favorable listings to one line each, formatted correctly. This shows you know that practical achievements are those that carry real worth.
Write A Short Intro
It can be easy to detail at length the things you have achieved or the lessons you have learned. Instead, keep your intense self-promotion to the first paragraph under your name. For example, you might write “a competent freelance writer, with diverse experience as an SEO specialist. Affable, punctual, willing to take on great challenges and work as an essential part of a team.” This gets to the heart of the matter quite quickly, and is the first description the reader will have after seeing your name.
With these tips, we very much hope that you’ll write effective resumes from here on out.