In this guide, you’ll learn how to create an effective resume. You’ll learn strategies for tailoring your resume to the role you’re pursuing, and how to effectively present your skills and experience—whether you’re a new-job seeker or a mid-career professional switching to a new field. You will learn about templates and formats and understand the structure of every core section of a successful resume.
Strategy
An effective resume needs to present all the important information about you as a professional in a concise and clear way. Format and content are both important. Prior to diving into the details of resume structure, you’ll first want to have a clear understanding of what you are trying to communicate. It’s also important to keep your focus on what matters to the employer and do everything you can to tailor your resume to the role.
Focus on what’s important to the employer
Before writing your resume, try to consider the employer’s point of view. What do they want to know? Answering this question will enable you to focus on the information that is going to be relevant to the employer. This, in turn, increases your chances of getting their attention.
When applying to a specific role, carefully read the job description. This will help you understand specifically what the employer is looking for. If you want to gather additional insights, review multiple job descriptions to see what shows up repeatedly. This will help you gain a broader understanding of the role. Another great way to understand the needs of your potential employer is to schedule networking conversations with industry professionals who can share their experiences and insights.
Keep in mind that focusing on what’s relevant to the employer might mean omitting details about your skills and experiences that are significant to you but are not directly relevant to the role. Deciding what to not include on your resume can be as important as deciding what to include. Irrelevant information might distract or confuse a reader, potentially making them more likely to discard your resume.
Tailor your resume to a role
It is essential that you tailor your resume to each job that you apply for. Even if your target roles have the same general set of requirements—and even if your skills and experience are broadly applicable—you should still adjust the order of your qualifications to match the order on the job description. In this way, you’re putting what’s most important to each employer at the top.
If you can, try to match the language of the job description. For example, if you have a resume built around recruiting, and you are applying for a talent acquisition role, replace “recruiting” with “talent acquisition” on your resume. Shifting to the employer’s terminology can help them relate to you. This approach can also help prevent you from being filtered out by automated software that relies on keywords to match your resume to the job description and to determine whether it should be passed on to a recruiter or discarded.
Tip: Keep in mind that resumes are traditionally written in the third person without the use of personal pronouns.
Different Types of Job Seekers
Your resume strategy will differ at different stages of your career journey. Someone seeking their first role will need to use a different approach than someone looking to make a mid-career switch to a new field. In both of these scenarios, you have to communicate your value despite not having experience in the field, but your strategy will differ depending on what information you have available to share.
You can use the recommendations in this section to understand how to communicate your value to an employer in a way that’s appropriate to your skills and experience.
Career changers
If you are an experienced professional but are looking to start a career in a new field, your background can provide you with a unique perspective, and can potentially help you stand out as a candidate. At the same time, you will need to be conscious about clearly establishing yourself as a qualified professional in your new field. Remember that your application will most likely be reviewed alongside applications from people with directly relevant experience, so you need to make it clear to the employer why they should consider you for the role over those candidates.
Here are some key things to keep in mind as you build your resume:
Focus on your transferable skills and experiences, and highlight the advantages of your diverse background.
When describing your past "experiences" focus on what’s relevant to your new career, and don’t over-elaborate on less relevant details. For example, if you’ve been managing a restaurant and are now shifting into IT support, your customer service skills will be crucial, while your ability to manage staff won’t be as relevant. If, as a restaurant manager, you maintained your computer network and electronics, that will be important to discuss on your resume as well—even if it was a minor component of your role. Finally, try to point out how your background—despite being in a different field—is actually an advantage. For example, you might highlight how the commercial awareness you developed as a restaurant manager can help you understand business needs when prioritizing your work as an IT support professional.
Adopt the terminology of your new industry.
Get familiar with the language, terms, and jargon of your new industry and demonstrate this familiarity by using industry-specific words and phrases in your resume. This will make it easier for the reader to understand how your experience is relevant for them, and give them confidence about your engagement with your new field. For example, if you’ve run your own business in the past and are now looking for a role in marketing, use terms such as “marketing funnel” and “nurturing leads” when discussing your past marketing activities—even if you weren’t thinking in those terms at the time.
New Professionals
People who are looking for their first job, and who don’t yet have professional experience to describe, might struggle with how to fill their resumes. When this is the case, you can leverage non-professional experiences such as coursework, extracurricular activities, volunteer work, and life experiences (travel, care taking, and more) as a means to demonstrate to the employer how you overcome challenges, solve problems, and achieve results.
It’s important to remember that the employer only knows what’s on your resume. If you think something will help you make your case to a prospective employer, you need to find a way to include that information on your resume. Use sections such as projects, Volunteer Work, Relevant Experiences as alternatives to Professional Experience for that purpose.
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