More than a list of degrees, experiences, and skills, your resume helps you to sell your candidature in your dream company. Your resume is that marketing tool that fetches an interview invite for you. It should not just accentuate essential facts, figures, metrics about you but also have perfect presentation of achievements, jobs, degrees, and skills that can add weight to your application. On an average, more than 250 resumes are received for even a small corporate job opening; thus, making it even more important for your resume to have all the critical elements that can make it truly effective and stand out. That being said; here are the 6 most important elements that can make your resume truly effective.
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Crisp & Clear Summary: A short and clear summary is necessary for a resume. It should highlight upfront all the important things about you that the recruiter or interviewer should know first. It is a brief paragraph consisting of 3-5 sentences. The headline of the summary should highlight your main role and be clearly visible when you post the resume for job application. Write down your profile along with your expertise and achievements in the content under this headline.
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Correct Contact Information: The inflow of job applications has extremely increased over the past few years due to various online job portals where job seekers can upload resume. Clear and correct contact information is imperative as the recruiter would not waste his time trying to find a way to contact you and would eagerly skip to another resume. On the top right corner of the resume, add contact information like the e-mail id, contact information, and your address. You can also add your social media profile links or the link to your personal blog etc., in the contact information section. Cross check each and every detail here to ensure it is correct and the interviewer can easily contact you.
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Bulleted Skills: Interviewers are always looking for candidates that have suitable skills for the job they are applying for. While creating your resume, pen down all the skills that you feel might be important for this job. The skills should be a bulleted list so that the interviewers can easily find them while skimming through your resume. Match the hard skills for the job and also ensure that you have added all the soft skills as well in your resume for greater impact.
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Highlighted Achievements: Your achievements are the medals you should always show off in front of your prospective employer. Your achievements should be highlighted and give the interviewer a clear reason to call you. Ensure that all your achievements, whether it is your academic achievements (related to the profile) or professional achievement (like reduced budget/manpower or increased sales etc.,), are properly highlighted on your resume to catch the employer’s fancy in one go.
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Numbers: Numbers play a key role in your resume. Include as many numbers as you can in the resume to not just quantify all your achievements but also provide context to your role, responsibilities, and accountability. In addition to that, they also save space and catch the attention of the recruiter instantly. You can include numbers for new clients acquired, cost reductions/savings, increase in profits/revenue/sales, complaints resolved, retention of employees, increase in engagement etc.
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Essential Keywords: Nowadays you can easily post your resume free on various job portals and submit your CV to apply for various jobs posted online. The employers are also receiving a high inflow of resumes and to filter out these resumes they use various resume filters and application tracking systems. These systems, software, and programs scan the resume for various keywords. If your resume has the desired keyword, it would be selected otherwise it would just be filtered out. So, research for the essential keywords for the job profile for which you are eyeing and include these keywords in the resume.
While adding these elements in your resume, make sure that it does not become all clumsy and messy. It should have enough white space for breathing. Moreover, the information you add should also be crisp, clear, and to-the-point to avoid making it look like a lengthy write-up.
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