When applying for work, your role is to stay in the game. If the recruiter has lots of résumés, sadly, their role is to cull you.
How do you stay in the game?
- Your résumé should be specific to every role you apply for
- It MUST include your most recent role – put if first and the other roles in reverse order
- While a résumé is a summary, recruiters do like to be able to see the ‘type’ of role you worked in and what exactly you did. eg. What does the company do? Which tools / equipment did you use? Did you supervise people? How many?
- A photo is not a good idea in most cases
- Three pages is usually enough and don’t get too fancy with layout or fonts
- Use professional language and minimise jargon
- Achievements are the icing on the cake – pop a couple under the roles / duties
- When referencing ‘soft skills’ (eg. Communication) be specific and provide examples of when and how you have used them
- ‘Extended’ dot points can be useful to show a list of demonstrated skills and abilities while also showing you can string a sentence together
- Volunteering is highly valued by employers. Include volunteer work
- Don’t worry about hobbies unless they help the cause. eg. Gaming is probably not ideal unless you are applying for a job in computing
- Referees should be able to confirm you do a good job. CHECK and double check their contact details along with your own. If just starting your career, a referee could be a tutor or sports coach etc. If you’ve been self-employed, consider customers or regular suppliers as referees
- CHECK and triple check ALL details – errors in spelling and grammar can dramatically impact of chances of being interviewed. Finally, have someone else check it.