According to our last data, we have scanned and reviewed tons of resumes over the past 6 months. That was the main reason, why we decided to provide our reader with a complete guide on how to craft an outstanding resume format 2023 which works.
Each read resume brings us experience, additional HR skills, and job seekers’ mistakes. There were a lot of different mistakes, which might be omitted. That’s why we decided to write this post, not about different types of resume writing mistakes. Today we’re going to talk about how to exclude such mistakes from your resume.
There is no reason to talk about extreme edge cases. We’re going to discuss classic resume templates. Our main goal is to share with you our experience and protect you from strict HR, reducing your chances to get a job.
1. Cath attention using anchors
When you have already applied for a position, you need to be confident, that you did the right choice and be passionate about the desired position. Try to grab the hiring manager’s attention using specific anchors, which could be interesting for them.
What anchors are we talking about? That could be really different things. In some cases, it could be a relevant experience. Another good option here could be relevant certificates, which could be a good addition to your CV. Some job seekers are trying to tailor their resumes for vacant positions. We do believe that such an approach in job searching is one of the most effective.
2. Results over “Doing”
Nobody is going to hire a candidate without any proven results and a “to be done” approach in a candidate’s head. Companies are looking for people, who could strengthen their companies. Due to all written above, hiring managers are changing their resume scanning processes.
They are looking for OUTCOME. Even though, they are looking for candidates with proven results with figures. That means, that you need to include some figures for HR. Some data could help your reader to understand what exact value you bring to a previous company.
Try to omit hard-to-understand acronyms. That’s much better to use easy-to-understand explanations here. The best example for a sales manager could be “Average monthly generated profit in Q4 was $X”.
3. Professional resume templates
Another resume trend in resume writing – is professionally designed resume templates. Job seekers do not pay enough attention to this aspect when crafting their resumes, but it’s one of the most important detail.
Attention! That’s what you’re fighting for. Your resume content matters, but the way you present a resume is not less important these days. An outstanding, colored, creative resume could help you to grab much more reader’s attention compared to a grey sheet of paper.
Get the latest resume 2023 templates compilation 1 and resume templates compilation 2 with the most creative templates, which could be used by you as real templates or for inspiration.
4. Do a job ad research before applying
This approach in the job application process could be really useful if you would like to increase the response rate from a hiring manager. Here we’re trying to solve a problem when you are applying for a position before doing 10-second research and simple matching.
What should you do before applying for a position:
- Read carefully a job description
- Get a simple keywords analysis, and write down hard skills, you found there
- Do you have enough years of expertise to apply for this position?
These three questions above could help you to get the most relevant vacant job ads for you. You would save your time and will increase your chances to get a job! Another good exercise for you could be to create a semantic map of keywords relevant to you. After you will create it, you can match it with your resume to understand which skills you did not include.
5. Before the first day starts
It’s not a secret that most likely each company today has its own corporate culture, traditions, values, etc. You could be a really outstanding candidate with tons of experience behind your back, with an impressive network and skills…But you are not a person this exact company would like to see in an office. Why? Because you are not responding to their internal corporate culture. Such a thing could be really disappointing, especially when it is the last interview with a boss.
How to be prepared for that? Know your colleagues, using social networks. List corporate accounts on Facebook to understand what are doing in their spare time, what activities they like, and so on.. Using such knowledge, you would have much more confidence in what you are doing.
6. Only the most relevant!
There is not hard to write a ten pages resume, describing every position in additional useless details. But the problem is that hiring managers are not going to read that! Simply, because they don’t have enough time to do that.
Hiring managers are using 6 seconds rule. That’s the time they need to understand whether the candidate is relevant and could fit a position. The more relevant and targeted information you will provide in hard concentration, the more chances you have to get a position.
7. Ghost Resume Reading
If you are looking for a specific position and are not sure if your resume is good enough to apply. Maybe there could be some tiny edits you’d like to do before it will be in HR’s inbox. That’s why it’s a really good idea to do a ghost resume reading.
How it works. The main idea here is to compare your CV with other candidates’ resumes. By doing that, you can simply understand what you missed in your document and enhance it. It works pretty well when you could find some differences between your resume and other candidate job profiles. Works well, especially when you understand that you did not include a lot of interesting and relevant data.
8. Direct Message
When it comes to a consideration process, most likely hiring managers are trying to follow their internal process. It works only if you applied your resume via the application form or write an email to a hiring manager.
In other cases, you might have much more chances to get employed. All the corporate websites list an email. Once you understand an email. Now you can simply understand the domain names. Once you have a domain name you can search different email addresses on the web. Usually, HRD or CEOs publish their private or corporate email addresses on a specific website. It’s a good idea to boost your chances to get a job by writing a direct message to a person, who makes decisions.
9. Follow-up messages
Use a specially dedicated calendar for follow-up letters. Each hiring manager is a pretty busy person. They are not going to follow the whole internal recruitment process or flow. If you have any agreements, it’s your headache and responsibility to keep them under the radar.
A common practice is to follow up recruiter after 3-5 days after you have already sent a CV and there was no feedback. There are some tricky moments about how to write catchy follow-up letters, but now we’re not going to deep into this topic.
10. Targeted resume
A targeted resume is key to getting a job in 2023. The more match is, the more chances you have to get a job. The key value here is in content. You provide your readers with what they are looking for.
It doesn’t matter what type of resume format are you going to use. Chronological or functional, doesn’t matter. You need to concentrate on hard skills and relevant expertise. Carefully read job position descriptions and include data from there in a resume.
11. A resume writer is a good idea?
Of course, if you have enough money to pay for a professional resume. In other cases, such a service could bring you much more pain instead of benefits. Not all resume writers are professional as they will try to ensure you.
We do believe that you have enough experience to write a professional resume by yourself. We provide you with enough information and templates to do that even better than some services could provide.
12. Follow Resume Formatting Rules
It doesn’t matter who you are and the job you are applying for – there is one golden rule in job seeking process you should follow, and without any doubt, you would increase your chances to get an invitation for an interview.
Help Hiring Manager to hire you.
Use well-formatted resume.
If you don’t know how to do that – find on the web. Download. And USE it.
Why should you do that? Simply because you help HR to do their job and you save their time. It’s not hard to understand what resume format 2023 you should use and when you should use just only specific CV format.
How you could help the hiring manager to scan your resume:
- Use wide margins to make reading your resume much easier;
- Resume headings – it’s a key to success. The more clear they are, the more adequate your resume is;
- Use bold and italic fonts to stress the most important information in your resume;
- List information in your resume using bullets or numbers.
13. VALUE over DUTIES
The main issue each hiring manager face – is assessing the estimated value any candidate could bring during the trial period. And it’s not a secret that it’s a really hard task. Even for experienced hiring managers with over 25 years in the HR area.
And what are you thinking about? Right! If it’s not a simple thing for them, you should help them to do that. You could use: HOW? It’s not a hard thing to do. You need to prepare one or more accomplishments for each position you used to work in and include them before you would write your responsibilities.
There is only one way how HR could understand who you are, even before he/she would talk to you – it’s your ACCOMPLISHMENTS.
It’s your main competitive advantage.
Some useful tips on how to show why you are a valuable candidate:
- No need to list all your duties, it’s not necessary. HR would ask you if needed during an interview;
- List your accomplishment before you will start listing your main responsibilities;
- Use numbers and figures when you will overwrite the value you did bring to your ex-employer;
- STOP using general phrases and already written examples. Use your own style.
- Include only your achievements. Do not use somebody else’s, because it’s easy to check.
14. Show what exactly value you bring
All the time we see the same cases when really strong candidates don’t know how to sell their candidacies the best way. And it’s not about the way their resume was formatted or they don’t know how to attract more attention using resume template 2023. It’s about how they overwrite their responsibilities and quantify their achievements.
You should remember. Any written resume is a kind of marketing document and the main goal of such a document – is to sell your candidacy and get the job. That’s why you should know how to increase your value to get a well-paid job. And now we’d like to provide you with some resume tips on how to quantify achievements:
- Stop writing general achievements like: “Years in the company” OR “450 hours worked under XYZ project”.
- HR wants to see numbers and your main goal here – is to show valuable numbers, which could help them understand who you are and what exactly expertise you could bring to them.
15. Summary of Qualifications
To be honest, today you will not find a resume without any mistakes or tiny things, which you wouldn’t like to improve. One of such things, you’d better replace from your resume is – the resume objective. It’s not a resume trend you should follow today, because you could you a resume cover letter to place all the information about why you would like to get this job.
Now we’re going to talk about a summary of qualifications. It’s not an easy task to write it the way, you could impress your reader, but still – it’s a good opportunity to increase your chances and getting the job you want.
Some useful tips on what to include there and why you should write it:
- More attention from HR, which means more chances to be invited for an interview;
- More chances they would remember you as a potential candidate;
- Scanning your resume, the first thing the hiring manager sees in your resume after contact details is your resume summary;
- They would not disturb you, understanding who you are and what are your salary expectations.
16. GROW Your Network
You should remember that resume submission is another big part after you will finish writing your resume. And you should think about it sooner – better. So, you should not count on job sites, but be ready to talk to all your friends and people who would be ready to offer you a job.
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