8 Easy Tips to Improve Your Resume
Our recruiters see hundreds of resumes a week, and they generally make the same improvements to them over and over again.
After you've cleared your resume of glaring mistakes, eliminated unnecessary words and used power words throughout, clean up even more with the eight tips below to improve your resume.
- Use numbers. For IT consulting jobs, use numbers to indicate the scope and scale of a project you worked on, such as “Was part of a 10-person team that provided EHR support for 5,000 users.”
- Don’t lie. Recruiters have spent hundreds of hours interviewing for positions just like the one you’re applying for, so they can usually tell when something doesn’t add up. List your experience, certifications and skills positively, but honestly.
- Eliminate unnecessary dates. Don’t list dates that don’t add anything to your resume, such as dates for college activities or civic organizations, especially if they aren’t relevant to the job you’re applying for.
- Keep verbs consistent. Make sure all of your bullet points for past jobs start with a strong verb in the past tense, and for your present job, use verbs in the present tense. Use thesaurus.com to keep from using the same verbs over and over.
- Avoid a job description. Instead of simply listing the daily tasks you performed on your jobs, incorporate elements of past performance reviews to explain how you did past job tasks well or improved certain areas of your job.
- Test your hyperlinks. If you’re sending a recruiter or hiring manager to a LinkedIn profile or your personal website, make sure the links go to the right page.
- Verify the format. Ask the recruiter first if he or she prefers resumes in a certain format, such as without tables or in a specific font, length or program, such as a PDF or Word document.
- Know where to list your education. As a rule of thumb, if you’ve been out of college for three years or more, list your degree at the bottom of your resume. If you received a college degree or an advanced degree within the past three years, list it at the top of your resume.
