10 Things I’d like to see on your Resume

10 Things I’d like to see on your Resume

By: Danielle Jones, MBA

As a recruiter, I feel like I have a pretty good idea as to what recruiters would like to see on your resume, myself included. Use these tips to enhance your resume before applying to your next career. If you want to win an interview with the recruiter, take advice from the professionals.

• Resume Headline
  1. Who are you? You can answer this question in a short phrase at or near the top of your resume just under your contact information. Don’t have multiple headlines or titles included because it can confuse the recruiter as to what you’re actually interested in doing in your next career.
     1. Ex. “Corporate Recruiter” or “Senior Financial Analyst”

• Career History
  1. This is vital to have as it lets me know what experience and skills you possess. Start by including your most recent work history.
• What industries have you worked in?
  1. Recruiters oftentimes seek out people who have prior experience in a particular industry that they’re recruiting for first over someone who may be coming from a different background.
• Include Progression Dates
  1. Recruiters like to see how long you’ve worked at you prior careers. Red flags appear if you’ve jumped around a lot within the same job but at different companies. This will lead us to believe that you get bored easily or that you wear out your welcome there quickly.
• Customize Your Resume
  1. Take the time to customize your resume to cater the job in which you’re applying.
• Don’t exclude job gaps
  1. It’s okay to include them on your resume, just please explain them.
• Include your Address
  1. I want to know where you live to ensure that the job is relative to where you are. I won’t waste my time calling you if you live over an hour away.
     1. Disclaimer: You may live an hour or longer away, in which case please express your interest with re-locating.

• Design a creative Resume
  1. Try and make your resume stand out from your competition. There are graphic designers that design creative resumes on sites such as creativemarket.com. Trust me when I say having a bland resume isn’t necessary a bad thing, but if you want to stand out from the competition, spice yours up!
• Resume Formatting and Accessibility
  1. Make sure that your resume is able to be opened in different versions of Microsoft and Adobe PDF viewers. I’ll be the first to admit that if a candidate’s resume is not easily accessible and has terrible formatting which requires more work on my end, I might not even attempt to retrieve it.
• Include your LinkedIn link and email address
  1. LinkedIn is a social resume for recruiters. We can go to your LinkedIn and access your work history, skills/endorsements, referrals, awards, etc. Also, never submit a resume without your email address on it. This is an easy way for candidates to reach you at all times.

Hopefully you took notes and are going to be ensuring your resume is top notch. For more advice, tips or questions on resume building, email me at daniellejones@zeigler.com