Marketing Yourself: Resume Tips and Tricks

You know that dream job you have been looking at on the Visium Resources job board? Your resume is the first impression a recruiter will have of you. In the world of job searching, first impressions are lasting. On average, a recruiter will spend about 6 seconds scanning your resume. While this may seem like an extremely short time, and it is, these few seconds can be vital if you want to land that position. Creating a resume that grabs the recruiters attention and tells your professional story in a compelling way is the key to creating a good first impression and eventually landing your dream job.

However, doing a quick google search for “resume tips” shows, this is easier said than done. How does one show their experience in a concise, professional way that is also interesting and relevant? This is where Visium Resources can help.

Keep Your Resume Updated

In order to understand how recruiters use resumes to make decisions, it is important to understand how they are found. Most often, recruiters will search for resumes on one of the large job board sites: Indeed, LinkedIn, CareerBuilder or ZipRecruiter. These resumes are often sorted by date updated, so that we can tell when a candidate is actively looking for work. To attract the most attention, make sure you are updating your resume often.

Even if you don’t have anything to add, updating your resume is helpful. If a resume has not been updated in the past month, the recruiter will often pass over it. Of course, you also want to make sure you have all the relevant information on your resume, and that it is as up-to-date as possible. Make sure you list your current position and any other relevant positions going back at least 5 years, or longer if possible.

Include a Summary Section

When searching through resume databases, the search will often look for the position title. To maximize your chance at grabbing the attention of the recruiter, try and include the role you are looking for in your resume. Including a summary section will cause your resume to rank higher in results and have more visibility. You want to grab the attention immediately of whom ever is reading your resume, remember, you only have 6 seconds. A great career summary will help get the recruiter’s attention and describe how you are the solution to the company’s problems.

Make Every Second Count

Recruiters follow a simple and consistent visual path when reviewing resumes, so an organized and correctly formatted layout is crucial. Correctly formatted resumes will have a clear visual flow and present critical information where a recruiter would expect it to be. These kinds of documents can quickly let a recruiter know your qualifications for a position rather than passing on you. To make it easier for recruiters to scan your resume, it should be easy to read and usually be less than two pages. When making a resume easier to read you should use a logical format and wide margins, clean type and clear headings.

Recruiters will spend almost 80% of their review time focusing on six key data points: name, current company title/company, current position start and end dates, previous title/company, previous position start and end dates and education. Beyond these six points, recruiters scan for keywords that match with the position they are looking for. Since most of the fit/no fit decision was based on these six factors, individual detail and explanatory copy became filler and had little impact on the initial decision making.

Make Sure to Include All Skills, Both Hard and Soft

When writing a resume, one of the first things you should do is analyze your skill set. This is so you can accurately display, on paper, what you would bring to a company if you were hired. Hard skills are those skills that you can prove you possess. Example: coding, advertising on Facebook or drafting program experience. It is also important to add ALL the skills you think you possess that could be helpful for a job. Just because a skill seems common, doesn’t mean you should forgo adding it to your resume. A great example of this is Microsoft Office. While most candidates will be familiar with office, putting it on your resume shows you are confident in your abilities. This could be the deciding factor when deciding between two like candidates.

Another thing you should be considering are soft skills: skills that aren’t necessarily easy to measure. Example: collaborative attitude, organized or independent. While often recruiters and hiring managers don’t spend much time looking at this section, it is important to mention. These skills can help you rank higher in the search results and put your resume on the top of the pile.

Align Your Resume with the Job Description

Resumes that align with the job description have a much higher chance of being seen and reviewed by our recruiters. You can use a free tool called Jobscan to see if your resume is matching up with the job description. This tool will tell you which keywords you are missing in your resume and give you the opportunity to creatively include these keywords in your resume. At Visium, we recommend at minimum of around a 70% match.

Although, it seems like common sense, having a solid resume is extremely important when trying to land your next job. Crafting an exceptional resume is becoming more difficult due to the influx of computer software tools recruiters are now using. If you use our resume tips and showcase your unique talents and skills, you will be a more successful applicant. Remember, when you work with Visium Resources to find a job, one of our qualified recruiters can help you to write the perfect resume for that position. So check out the Visium Resources job board today, and find your next career.