Important 3 tricks which may land you a Job immediately:


It is important that all candidates and applicants must understand few items about their resume even before starting to distribute to new employers or their jobs.

  1. You resume doesn’t have to very creative or fancy. Professional resume means the simplicity & the elegance behind it.
    1. Fonts used must be most commonly used font types: If you are able to create a resume with simple font (most commonly used fonts like Cambria, Georgia, Calibri, Times New Roman …) then you completed the first hurdle of preventing your resume from being changed when new employer opens it in their system. If your new employer (who posted the job) doesn’t have fancy font installed in his/her system then word defaults to the default font type which changes the font justification and the spacing.
    2. Format of file: Never use the format like .jpeg or PDF. If your resume if not readable by ATS (application Tracking System) then most probably you lost most beautiful opportunity. Most of the employers now a days parse resume through ATS system of their choice. ATS system/tool basically collect the data in resume and order it in ranking based on the key words match. The highest ranked get the best possibility of being called for interview and ultimately get the job. If your resume is in image or pdf or unknown format then it is most possible hanging behind at the bottom of ranking of ATS. There are many new tools which can also read these types of file example – tool with using OCR or some enhanced functionality but you as an applicant never should assume that it will be available with all the employers.
    3. Never use tables or images in your resume: As we suggested earlier, tables also are not read smoothly by ATS systems ad may rank your resume at the bottom
  2. Never think one resume is enough for all jobs. Dynamicity and authenticity of resume lands the job.
    1. Although you can’t change the resume or add fake details, you can continually improve the resume to meet the job description. Example – if you are applying for HR Manager then remember that the combat experience related to the World War II may in fact decrease the value of resume. Just keep what is absolutely necessary and sufficient for the position you are applying.
    2. No one likes too much diversification in the resume. If we find a candidate who is Jack of all then most probably he will never be hired for Engineering job, but may be a suitable fit for marketing and sales or HR department. It will totally depend on the type of the job but still the relevance of the experience must be reflected in association to the job requirement. A cook with Swordsmanship skill (diversified skill sets) may not be a likely candidate neither as swordsman nor as a cook. Statistical tools searching for the standard deviations are used in advance companies and the resumes with highest deviations are denied immediately by systems even before they reach to the hand of hiring associates.
    3. When you are truly experienced then you resume will have sweet smell of authenticity automatically. No matter what you change in your resume it is always stay authentic – until and unless you start faking it. Resume psychology is built on your true experience. So don’t be afraid of adding the details which are relevant to the job and removing the details which are not relevant.
  3. Your resume is your ultimate and most professional document
    1. Resume explains the complete behavior of the candidate. The usage of words in different locations, sentence structures and the errors you make in resume is what you are in market. Only your new potential employer sees is the resume at first- no you in person. Make sure your resume reflects true you- not a totally faked version of you.
    2. Resume is the only document in your life which you will keep reviewing throughout your life, now just think about the mistake in a document which you reviewed all your life. Most of job seekers ignore this fact and get no job at the end. Resume is most accurate and most formal document – which not just is a paper but the real you in market

How long should a resume be?


Your resume should be at least a half page for each job you worked Plus half page. You have a 3 years of experience then tentatively you will have 2 page resume. 1.5 page to explain your job details and roles and remaining half page for summary, education/certification and skill sets. Remember, this number is minimum requirement.

If you have many years of experience Say 20 years of experience then remember – all other experience past 10 years is tentatively not something which will lend you a job (also depend on type of job – say  a teacher with 20 years of experience is considered better than 10 years experienced teacher, but a software developer with 20 years of experience may not be different than 5 years of experienced young software developer). Never try to make resume so long that the employer get tiered in the middle and quit reading. Just imagine if someone gaves you a choice to read 10 pages paper and 4 page paper with same relevant content then which paper would you read ? Obviously 4 page. Right ?

Few professions like software, engineering require larger resume because of the names of tools, techniques, methods, environments etc. In their case they may have 3-4 pages resume for 3 years  of experience. But in any case never exceed more than 5-6 page length of resume. It is the max limit for professional jobs. To make resume smaller do not make the font size small and unreadable.

 


Some numbers that may help you decide how your resume should look like:


Careerbuilder did a survey in 2013 end, to identify the most common resume mistakes that may lead them to automatically dismiss a candidate, employers pointed to the following:

  • Resumes that have typos – 58 percent
  • Resumes that are generic and don’t seem personalized for the position – 36 percent
  • Resumes that don’t include a list of skills – 35 percent
  • Resumes that copied a large amount of wording from the job posting – 32 percent
  • Resumes that have inappropriate email address – 31 percent
  • Resumes that don’t include exact dates of employment – 27 percent
  • Resumes printed on decorative paper – 22 percent
  • Resumes that include a photo – 13 percent

“Your resume is the primary deciding factor for whether you will land a job interview,” said Rosemary Haefner, Vice President of Human Resources at CareerBuilder. “It’s important to project a professional image. Keep it succinct, personalize it to feature only skills and experience relevant to the position you’re applying for, and always include specific, quantifiable results that showcase the value you can bring to an organization.”

Feel free to chat for free guidance by Sentience TMS at sentiencetms.com. Most of our webinars and training are free- ask us for the upcoming dates.  

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