43 resume tips that will help you get hired

43+ Resume Tips and Tricks to Land Your Next Job in 2024

Haven’t updated your resume in a while?

We feel you!

There’s a lot that goes into crafting a resume, and unless you’re an expert, the whole process can be overwhelming.

Worry not, though. We’re here to help!

In this value-packed guide, we’re going to give you 43+ of the best resume tips & tricks. Follow these tips to the T, and you’re bound to land your next job.

If you have the time, we’d recommend reading the guide end-to-end. We didn’t include anything that’s “Optional.”

If you don't, that’s fine too! We divided the guide into 3 chapters, with the most important ones on top...

• Fundamental Tips - These resume tips are a game-changer. Whether you follow them or not can be the deciding factor in whether you’re getting hired.
• Essential Tips - These resume tips are very important, but not as important as the Fundamentals. 
• Nice-to-Have Tips - These resume tips aren’t that ground-breaking, but they can still have an impact on your job-search.

Let’s get this started.

19+ Fundamental Resume Tips and Tricks

1) use a professional email address.

No one wants to contact that guy with the tacky email from high school (We’re looking at you, [email protected]).

Create a professional email address for anything related to your job-search and career. 

Any combination of [first name] and [last name] will do.

• [email protected]
• [email protected]

If you have a common name and the email is taken, consider using your initials ( e.g. [FirstNameInitial][LastName]@gmail.com ), or even buying your own custom domain name.

2) Double-Check Your Contact Information

Even the most confident writer is not safe from typos.

Make sure that all your contact information on your resume is accurate, both email and phone number.

After all, even if you’re the most qualified person in the world, it’s not going to matter much if the HR manager can’t contact you.

3) Include Phone Number and Country Code

It’s always a good idea to include your phone number in your resume.

Sure, in most cases, the HR manager will reach you on email. But what if the email gets lost, for whatever reason? Or worse - it goes to your spam section.

If you’re applying for a foreign job, you should also include a country code .

For example, if you’re from Denmark and you’re applying to another country, you’d want to include the country code (+45) in front of your number.

4) Mention Achievements Over Job Responsibilities

When listing your work experience , include achievements instead of responsibilities whenever possible.

Chances are, the HR manager already knows what your responsibilities were from your job title. 

Fun fact: your responsibilities are probably literally the same as everyone else's in your profession.

Instead, to stand out, you want to include as many achievements as possible.

Here’s some achievement examples:

• Exceeded sales KPIs by 25% for 3+ months straight.
• Generated over $25,000 in sales in 1 month.

Compared to responsibilities:

• Generated leads through cold calling.
• Carried out sales operations and managed existing clients.

See the difference? The first example shows that you’re a high achiever. The second shows that you’re a sales manager.

In some fields, though, you might not have any real achievements. If you’re a server, for example, you can’t have “served 200+ people really well” as an achievement.

In that case, it’s totally OK to stick to responsibilities.

Not sure which achievements to mention? Check out our list of 40+ achievements for every field

5) Stick to Relevant Work Experience

Speaking of work experience, make sure you only include previous positions that are relevant to the job you’re applying for .

Make sure that all work experience entries are…

• Timely - Only mention your last 3-5 positions max. No one cares what job you did 15 years ago.
• Contextual - Applying for the role of a dentist ? You don’t have to mention that one time you worked as a pre-school math teacher.

If you don’t have a lot of experience in the field (or no experience at all), though, you can include whatever you have. It’s better to have some experience rather than none .

6) Focus On Other Sections If You Have No Experience

What if you’re a student who’s never worked a day in their life?

The good news is that you don’t need work experience to have a good resume.

In fact, for entry-level jobs, the hiring manager doesn’t expect you to have any experience.

If you want to stand out with a no-experience resume, you can focus more on other sections, such as:

• Coursework - Want to show the HR manager that you have the right know-how, even though you don’t have experience? Mention any relevant courses you took in university.
• Extracurricular Activities - You’ve probably heard the famous college saying - “extracurricular activities are good for your resume.” Well, here’s some good news. It’s not just a rumour, they actually are! List your extracurricular activities just as you’d list your work experience, and you’re good to go.
• Projects - Done some interesting projects in your free time? Maybe you grew an instagram page to thousands of followers. Or, you worked on a part-time startup in uni? Whichever the case, you can add it to your resume.

Want to learn how to write a convincing student resume? Be sure to check out our no-experience resume guide !

7) Be Super Specific - Add Numbers, Data, and Experiences When Possible

Everything you write in your resume should be very specific .

Back every claim with specific experiences, numbers, or data.

What do we mean by that? Well, compare these 2 examples:

• Results-oriented sales manager with 5+ years of experience in the fin-tech industry. Driven over $500,000 worth of enterprise software sales at Company X. Deep knowledge of multiple CRM tools, including SalesForce, PipeDrive, HubSpot CRM, and more.
• Sales manager looking for the next step in their career. Previous experience involves doing sales for several software companies. Deep knowledge of CRM software.

See the difference between the two examples?

The first is very specific, mentioning numbers, data, experiences, etc.

The second, on the other hand, is very generic. The only thing you learn from it is that the candidate does sales.

8) Gap In Your Resume? Explain What Happened

A gap in your resume can be a huge red flag - but only if you don’t address it.

The hiring manager is going to assume the worst by default. So, it’s a good idea to be direct and insert 2-3 sentences acknowledging the gap and explaining what happened.

To do this, just make a small note under your latest work experience entry:

MadeUpHospital

Jan 2016 - Jun 2017

*Quit due to medical reasons in 2017, looking to rejoin the workforce.

• Responsibility #1
• Responsibility #2
• Responsibility #3

Need more tips & tricks on how to get your career back on track? Check out our complete guide to getting back to work after a long period of unemployment !

9) Mention Promotions and Career Progression

Recently got promoted? Congrats!

Make sure to mention that in your resume. 

Company Name

Latest Position

• Dates Worked
• Promotion Explanation (can be an achievement)
• Achievements/Responsibilities

Older Position

10) Use Active Language

Language matters.

The way you present your achievements can amplify their significance, or downplay their worth.

Compare these 2 examples:

• Spearheaded company X’s content marketing operations.
• Responsible for content marketing at company X.

The first example makes you seem more in-charge, like what you did had a huge impact.

The second, on the other hand, sounds super plan, as if you straight up said “I did content marketing.”

You should use action words to make your achievements sound a LOT more significant. 

Some of our favorite action words include:

• Accelerated
• Accomplished
• Contributed

Not sure which action words you want to use? Check out our complete list of 340+ best action verbs for your resume .

11) Tailor Your Resume to Job Ad

Imagine 2 resumes:

• The first describes THE person you’re looking for. They possess all the relevant skills and experiences, and they’re accurately listed in the resume.
• The second MIGHT be the person you’re looking for, but you’re just not sure. They seem to have some relevant experience, but not others.

Which one would you pick? Exactly!

So, how do you make YOUR resume look like the first example?

By tailoring it to the job ad!

How? Well, let’s look at the following job ad:

We’ve highlighted some of the essential skills in blue above. 

Now, to tailor your resume to these requirements, all you’d have to do is mention in your resume that you:

“Have 5+ years of experience in online marketing.” 

• You can mention this in your resume summary.

“Have experience with social media marketing.” 

• This can go in either the “Skills” or “Work Experience” section

“Have a B.A. in marketing or business.” 

• This, of course, belongs in the education section.

“Have experience in managing $20,000+ monthly ad budget on Facebook.” 

• You can mention this in either Work Experience or Resume Summary

If your resume mentions all the essential job requirements, there’s no reason for the hiring manager NOT to call you back!

12) Create a Convincing Cover Letter

Do you want to get an interview in just about every job you apply to?

Well, that’s going to require a bit more effort than usual: you’re going to have to create a killer cover letter.

For most job-seekers, the cover letter is an after-thought. 

They put 100% of their focus on the resume, and re-use the same cover letter for every position they apply for.

Here’s the thing, though: a cover letter is as important as a resume. In a lot of cases, it can even be the deciding factor on whether you get called in for an interview or not.

So, want to know how to write a good cover letter? Here’s what it should include:

• Your Contact Information.
• Hiring manager’s contact information.
• Opening paragraph - Brief introduction to your career, 1-2 top achievements and intent (why you’re applying for this company or position) 
• The body - Go through your experiences and achievements in more detail. Explain how your background is relevant for the position they’re hiring for.
• Closing paragraph - Summarize your main points, and include a call to action (“if you’re interested, I’d love to chat!”)

There’s a LOT more to creating a good cover letter than what we just covered. Check out our complete guide to cover letters for a more detailed walkthrough on how to make one!

13) Keep Your Resume 1-2 Pages at Most

An ideal resume length is 1 page .

Nope, no excuses. 95%+ of job-seekers don’t need to go past the one-page limit.

After all, HR managers receive over 1,000+ resumes for each open position. They don’t have the time to read your autobiography.

There are some exclusions to the one-page rule, though. You can go up to 2 pages if:

• You’re applying for a job in academia. In which case, it’s OK to go up to even 3 pages.
• If you’re an experienced executive with a decade’s worth of work experience.

Want to learn more? Check out the guide on how long should a resume be ! 

14) Use a Reverse-Chronological Resume Format

Part of creating an effective resume is choosing the right format to tell your story.

If you ask just about any career expert (including us), they’d recommend you to stick with the reverse-chronological format .

That means starting off every resume section with your latest experience, and working your way down to the earliest.

In some rare cases (if you have a career gap, for example), you might want to go for a different resume format, such as the Functional Resume or a Combination Resume. If you want to learn more, check out our guide to resume formats .

15) Include White Space

White space refers to the space in your resume between all the sections and paragraphs of text.

When formatting your resume, you should keep some space in between your sections so that it’s easier for the HR manager to skim your resume.

Here’s some basic layout info you should keep in mind when it comes to white space:

• Margins - aim for 1-inch margin on all four sides of your resume to maximize white space.
• Line spacing - go for 1.0 or 1.15 line spacing between text and double lines after subheadings.
• Bullet points - limit up to 6 points within each section.

Not sure if you’ve got your resume layout right? Check out our guide!

16) Use the Right Resume Font

You want your resume to be easy to read, right?

But at the same time, you also want it to stand out.

That means that you should pick the right font, and the right font size.

Here’s what we recommend:

• Best resume fonts: Ubuntu, Robot, Overpass
• Best resume font size: 11-12pt for normal text, 14-16pt for section titles and headers

Check out our full guide on best resume font, size, and format for more info and practical examples.

17) Make Your Resume ATS-Friendly

ATS is an applicant tracking system that many businesses use to screen resumes.

The way this works is, the ATS scans your resume to see if you mention the right keywords, and if you don’t, it automatically discards your application.

So, how do you make sure that a robot doesn’t reject your resume that worked so hard on?

Well, it’s 2 things:

• Pick a Tried-and-Tested Format - Here’s the thing: if the ATS can’t scan your resume, it will automatically discard it. So, you want to use a resume that’s built with ATS in mind. We might be biased, but we’d recommend trying out Novorésumé. We build our resume with with ATS in mind, making it scannable by applicant tracking systems world-wide.
• Sprinkle the Right Keywords - Just as we explained in the “Tailor Your Resume” tip, go through the job ad and figure out what keywords the ATS could be looking for. Then, sprinkle them all around your resume. Head over here if you want to learn more about ATS & keywords .

18) Don’t Lie On Your Resume

This one’s pretty obvious, but we thought we’d mention it anyway:

Don’t lie on your resume. Ever.

You’re going to be found out sooner or later and it’s going to cost you your job, or even your career.

It’s just not worth it.

19) Use an Online Resume Builder

Ever used Word editing tools to build your resume?

Then you probably know what we mean when we say that it’s a total pain.

You spend hours perfecting your resume, and then you make a single, small layout change, and BAM! The whole resume gets messed up.

Want to save yourself from all that hassle?

Use an online resume builder !

All you have to do is pick your favorite resume template , and start filling it in.

Whether you’re a recent graduate, or a professional with a decade of work experience, we have the right format for you!

13+ Essential Resume Tips and Tricks

20) include your job title in resume.

Your professional title should be the job title you’re applying for word-for-word.

Applying for a job as an advertising account executive?

Make sure to include the position name in your resume (below your name) as it’s written in the job ad. 

Ditch the buzzwords - no hiring manager likes those.

• Software Developer
• Code Monkey Ninja Samurai Hero

21) Name Your Resume Correctly

Once you’re done optimizing your resume and you’re ready to send it in, make sure the PDF version has the right name.

The ideal format is FullName - Resume .

• John Doe - Resume.pdf
• John Resume - Final Final Final Version Fixed 

22) Use Correct Subheadings

You’ll want your resume section subheadings to be accurate and easy to find.

So, to help the HR manager reading your resume, try to keep things simple.

• Resume Summary
• Work Experience
• Organizations
• Background Information
• Career History
• Groups Part Of

Bonus Points - this can also help Applicant Tracking Systems read your resume. They recognize “Work Experience,” but not “Work History.”

23) Include Only Relevant Social Media

Wondering if you should include social media links in your resume?

As a rule of thumb, you should only mention the ones that are relevant to your profession and career.

Here’s a brief overview of what you might include:

• LinkedIn - If your LinkedIn is updated, you can mention it for most professions.
• Stack Overflow / GitHub - If you’re a software engineer.
• Medium -Are you a freelance writer or blogger? Include your Medium.
• Quora - Are you an influencer in your field? Mention your Quora account (as long as you have a decent number of answers).
• Website/Blog - Do you have an online presence? Maybe a personal blog that positions you as an expert? If so, make sure to mention it.

24) Include Resume Objective or Summary

The hiring manager looks at your resume for 5-6 seconds max to decide if they’re going to read the rest or not.

Want to catch their attention in a snap?

Use a resume objective or summary.

Both of these sections act as an introduction to your resume, and are used to show that you’re qualified for the job from the get-go (before the HR gets to read the rest of your resume).

So, what’s what?

Both of these sections go in your resume header, right under your contact information section.

A resume objective is mainly for students, or professionals switching their careers. An objective is a 3-4 sentence snapshot of your professional goals and aspirations.

A resume summary is a 3-4 sentence summary of your resume. You use this instead of a resume objective if you’ve previously worked as the position you’re applying for.

• Multilingual customer service representative looking to provide Company X provide stellar customer experience. Strong communication skills, fluent in English, German, and French. Basic knowledge of CRM systems.
• Proactive UX designer with 5 years of experience in delivering enjoyable web and mobile products within the FinTech industry. Designed UI/UX and other marketing materials for 6 apps and 3 games at Company X, 2 of which were features in the App store. Skilled with Sketch and Adobe Creative Studio.

25) Don’t Use Personal Pronouns (“I”, “Me”)

Once you put your name at the top of your resume, it’s already implied that everything you mention in your resume applies to you.

So, there is no need to unnecessarily repeat “I did…” in your resume countless times.

• Managed data entry integrity within the applicant tracking system, ensuring timely entry and visibility of recruitment activity within ATS/CRM technologies.
• I managed data entry integrity within the applicant tracking system. I ensured timely entry, and I worked on the visibility of recruitment activity within the ATS/CRM technologies.

26) Consider Optional Resume Sections

Still have extra space to fill within your resume and want to show off your other important qualifications?

You can include some of the following optional sections to help your resume stand out:

• Hobbies and interests - While this is not a game-changer, they can really help show YOU are as an individual. 
• Volunteering experience - If you try to help others in your free time, while expecting nothing in return, chances are that you’re the type of employee who’s in it for more than just the money. This can be a huge plus for the HR manager.
• Certifications and awards  - Do you have any relevant certifications and awards in your field? As long as it’s relevant, feel free to include it.
• Publications - Are you a freelance writer or a distinguished author? You can include your published works (online, academic journal, etc.) here.
• Projects - Working on a side project can really show off your passion for your field. Hiring managers love employees who do cool work in their free time.

27) Tailor Your Skills to The Job Position

When scanning your resume, one of the most important things hiring managers look for is whether you have the right skills or not.

They’re not looking for just any skills, either. They’re looking for the skills that are going to help you excel at the job you’re applying for.

So, you need to tailor your skills section for each position you apply for.

You can usually figure out which ones are worth mentioning by scanning the job ad.

As a given, make sure you don’t mention anything that’s not directly related to your job.

For example, no one cares about your Photoshop design skills if you’re applying to work as a cashier.

Not sure which skills you can include? Check out our comprehensive list of 150+ must-have skills for any resume .

28) Cut the Fluff

Fluff is way more common than you’d think.

A lot of university students and fresh graduates often fill up their skills section with buzzwords like:

• Critical thinking
• Communication

But if you take a step back and think about it, those skills don’t mean anything. You know it, we know it, the HR manager knows it.

Without providing an example, they’re just a waste of space.

Just about everyone is good at “ communication ” - it doesn’t mean anything without experience to back it up.

So, go through your resume again, and think about this: does everything I say provide clear value?

If the answer is “No,” we’d recommend cutting it and replacing it with something more interesting.

Don’t have much experience? Struggling to fill in your resume? Check out our guide to making a no-experience resume .

29) Proofread With a Tool Like Grammarly

You can’t afford to have any typos on your resume.

There’s nothing more ironic than someone claiming to have an “eye for detail” with a bunch of spelling mistakes in their resume.

So, to be positive that your resume is typo-free, you can use a tool like Grammarly when you’re going over your final edits.

While Microsoft Word and Google Docs do a decent job of detecting errors, it’s always a good idea to have a backup spelling tool just in case.

30) Be Consistent With Section Formatting

Be consistent with your section formatting so that your overall resume is easy on the eyes.

This includes things like:

• Line spacing.

31) Include Volunteering Experience

You can’t go wrong with volunteering experience.

It’ll make you stand out regardless of your job position or industry. 

If the volunteering experience is somehow related to your career and has some transferable skills, you can even include it in your work experience

Here’s what that might look like:

Volunteer Camp Instructor

FireTech Summer Camps

06/2018 - 09/2018

Courses taught:

• Coding games with Java
• Python and electronics with Minecraft
• Teen coding with Python

32) Include Irrelevant Jobs if You Have No Other Experience

As a general rule, when applying for a job, you only list work experience that’s relevant for the position.

But what if you have none?

In that case, it’s totally OK to mention ANY work experience you might have, even if it’s not relevant for the job you’re applying for.

Look at it this way: the recruiter is more likely to hire someone that's worked A job, rather than a person that's never worked a day in their life.

11+ Nice-to-Have Resume Tips and Tricks

33) include languages and proficiency.

Most companies are international nowadays, and being bilingual is a great way to gain a competitive advantage.

Even if knowing a foreign language isn’t necessary for the job you’re applying for, it might come in handy at some point in the future.

When listing languages, you should always include your skill level:

• Intermediate

Oh, and it goes without saying that you shouldn’t lie about your skill levels.

Trust us, you don’t want to end up in a situation where the interviewer is a native Spanish speaker, and you exaggerated your “Proficient Spanish.”

34) Don’t Include “Reference Available Upon Request”

This is another common mistake many people still make.

Having a whole section dedicated to that one phrase is just a waste of space.

Hiring managers know they can always request your list of references - so what’s the point of mentioning it?

35) Don’t Include a Photo (If You’re From the US and UK)

There’s a lot of confusion around photos on resumes .

Some people always use a photo on their resume.

Others believe it’s a strict no-no.

So, which one is it?

It depends on your location.

There are strict anti-discrimination labor laws in some countries, namely:

• United Kingdom
• United States

If you’re from one of those countries, don’t include a photo on your resume.

Obviously, there are some exceptions to the rule - such as, if you’re applying for a modelling job.

If you’re from anywhere else in the world, though, you can include a photo. 

36) Feeling Stumped? Get Inspired by Resume Examples

Have doubts about your resume design or layout?

Check out some of our job-winning resume examples .

We made sure to cover samples for several different fields, including business, computer science, and more!

37) Read Your Resume Out Loud

While it may sound awkward, reading your resume out loud is the best way to spot any awkward phrases or spelling mistakes.

Sure, Grammarly is useful, but it often misses a lot of really obvious mistakes (which the HR manager probably won’t!).

This is going to be monotonous, yes. But it’s the best way to proofread your resume and it also beats any spell checking tools out there.

38) Clean Up Your Online Presence

Imagine this:

The recruiter LOVES your resume.

They’re about to call you in for an interview, but before that, they decide to check up on your online presence.

Big mistake.

The first thing that pops up when they Google your name is your Facebook page, with very embarrassing photos from your last night out.

Not really that appropriate for a Senior Banker.

Want to avoid such awkward situations? Make sure your online presence is working FOR you, not against you:

• Change your Facebook Privacy setting to “Friends” to make sure random people can’t see your profile.
• Clean up your Twitter account, make sure you’re not posting anything too scandalous.
• Google your name and see if you can find anything off. You can ask Google to remove any private sensitive information .

Do you have a LinkedIn profile? You should! It shows the recruiter that you’re serious about your career.

Make sure to optimize your LinkedIn profile so that it complements your resume!

39) Consider Putting Education First

The most important sections of your resume should come first.

Are you a student with very limited work experience?

Consider putting your education section on top of your work experience.

This places a lot more focus on your education career, as opposed to any irrelevant jobs you might have worked.

Of course, if you have worked a job in your field, you’d always want to put work experience on top.

40) Add Your Courses In the Education Section

If your education section is your biggest selling point, then you might want to also add any relevant courses you’ve taken.

As usual, relevance is key here. Applying for a job in finance? The recruiter doesn’t care about the social media course you took in your freshman year.

B.A. in Accounting and Finance

• Advanced financial statistics
• Econometrics II
• Advanced accounting II
• Media communication
• Digital and social media
• Communication research

41) Use DocSend to Track Your Resume

Ever wondered what happens after you send in your application?

Did the HR even read your resume, or did it fall through the cracks?

Well, with a tool like DocSend , you can know for sure whether someone look at your resume or not.

The way this works is, you upload your resume on DocSend, and it gives you a link you can use.

Whenever someone opens your link and looks at your resume, you’ll get a notification.

Cool, right?

This way, you can know for sure if you can expect a call for an interview (the HR looked at your resume for 60+ seconds), or you’re just not qualified (HR closed the resume within 5 seconds of opening it).

And to put the cherry on top, you’ll know if the HR manager missed your resume (you won’t get the notification within a week), so you can just send them a quick reminder!

• Unfortunately, this method only works if you’re applying for a job through e-mail and not through an online application.

42) Use Colors to Stand Out

The color scheme you use in your resume is an important part of its design.

Ideally, you should strike the right balance of creativity and professionalism.

If you’re applying for a job in a more conservative industry (e.g. finances, banking), a standard black and white theme is fine.

But if you’re applying to work in a creative startup as a web designer or a developer, you can get more creative.

After all, HR managers get a TON of resumes every day, and most of them look exactly the same.

Whenever you can afford to stand out with your resume, you should!

43) Consider Using a Professional Template

If you’re looking to create a new resume but don’t want to go through the painstaking process of creating one from scratch - consider using a professional template.

There’s a lot of pre-built online resume templates that can have you up and running with a fully customized resume in a matter of minutes.

There’s a lot of variety as well. You can pick a design that works perfectly for your industry or field.

Want to give it a try? Check out some of our top resume templates !

Key Takeaways

And that's a wrap!

There are a ton of resume tips & tricks on the web, and in this guide, we covered all the essential stuff.

So, we hope you enjoyed the guide and are a lot more confident with your resume skills!

Looking for more actionable advice? Check out our career blog for industry-leading career tips and tricks!

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24 Resume Tips To Get You Hired In 2024

This list of resume tips for 2024 has carefully curated the best practices and insights that have helped my clients land interviews in a matter of days and job offers in less than 60 days (even as few as two weeks!) after updating, revamping, or newly crafting their resumes.

Let me start by asking you, what’s keeping you from updating your resume?

I hear this scenario far too often from job seekers.

You dread going to work every morning. You do it because you need to pay the bills and chip away at that looming debt you’re reminded of with every monthly statement.

You get an email or text from an old friend, former co-worker, or industry connection that you made years ago about a job opening with a company you’ve been discreetly stalking online for weeks. All you need to do is send over your resume or apply online tonight, and the job is practically yours.

It only takes one look at your resume, and you feel defeated. You haven’t touched it in years. It doesn’t even have your most recent job listed, and its overall look and feel hasn’t changed much over time. You’re pretty sure it looks as ineffective as you feel after a long day at work.

Then there’s all this talk online about ATS, AI, bots, and algorithms that will “kick you out” if you don’t know how to beat the system. Let me reassure you right now, this doesn’t actually happen.

Resume writing is often the most dreaded task for job seekers because either:

• You have a difficult time talking about yourself in a resume,
• You have a hard time quantifying skill sets, and your edu-crastination (You like that?) has only instilled in you that quantifying your skills is the only way to get an interview,
• You have no idea what to do with your overly diversified experience or work history timeline issues like multiple company acquisitions, demotions, or changing job titles;
• The “dark cloud” of hiring technologies is hanging over you, or
• You’re just too exhausted to work on your resume after work.

Here are 24 actionable steps you can take to write a resume that lands more interviews and, ultimately, job offers this year.

This blog contains affiliate links, meaning I may receive a small commission (at no cost to you) if you subscribe or buy something through the links I share. I only share links to products or services that I use myself or absolutely love!

1 | Understand Your Resume’s Role In The Hiring Process

The #1 complaint from job seekers in the last five years has been, “My resume isn’t getting in front of the right people!” I get how frustrating, time-consuming, and often discouraging looking and applying for jobs online can be. Understanding your resume’s role in the hiring process is the first step to creating a job-winning resume that gets you unstuck and moving forward confidently.

Granted this can vary depending on company size and industry, here’s the SparkNotes version of the typical hiring process:

• A team leader or manager realizes they need to create or fill a position and notifies the HR team.
• Someone on that HR team creates a job description based on the team leader/manager’s needs and posts it to the company’s Applicant Tracking System (also known as ATS) which is linked to the company’s Careers page.
• The HR staff member then posts the job to job boards as well as LinkedIn, ZipRecruiter, Glassdoor, and other sites depending on their budget.
• The Applicant Tracking software collects resumes and applications from hundreds of job seekers, narrowing down applicants to the most qualified candidates using search terms and “knock-out” questions from the applications.
• The top qualified candidates (maybe the top 10) will have their resumes looked at by the recruiter or HR team who will have their own checklist of requirements and preferences.
• Out of the resumes seen, the top candidates (maybe the top 6) will get phone screening interviews.
• Out of the candidates screened, the top candidates (maybe the top 4) will have their resumes forwarded to that team leader or hiring manager to be considered for an in-person interview.
• Out of the interviewed candidates, the top candidate (maybe more depending on the hiring circumstances) will get the job offer.

2 | Write For All Readers, Not Just Bots

Now that you understand your resume’s role in the hiring process, you can see that your resume needs to get through an Applicant Tracking System and two other gateways before you are selected for a job interview. A common misconception about resume writing is that your top priority has to be writing your resume for computers or the bots that operate within ATS.

Resume writing is actually a balancing act. You have to write your resume for three different audiences: ATS, a recruiter or HR, and a hiring manager or direct supervisor deciding who will get the interview.

ATS is looking at both the digital formatting of your resume and the keywords you’ve included throughout. The HR reader likely has a checklist of requirements and preferences that they use as terms to search, sort, or filter through applicants, so you can’t assume this person will know that you have certain skills and experience based on your job titles. A hiring manager or direct supervisor will then need to decide who is the best fit for the job, the team, and the company as a whole among the handful of applicants that made it this far in the process.

3 | Stop Fearing Artificial Intelligence

If anything, AI is going to make it easier for you to land interviews.

Most of the AI-driven features being used by hiring professionals are to write better job postings and improve communications with candidates. AI can also be used to help recruiters and hiring professionals find candidates on networks like LinkedIn based on search terms like position titles and skills—where AI branches out from these search terms to find candidates with similar position titles and skills. LinkedIn is also providing AI-driven features for recruiters that will recommend profile matches before jobs are even posted.

Other hiring software, like Applicant Tracking Systems, have similar AI integrations. What’s most exciting is that some ATS have AI capabilities that will help gauge an applicant’s level of experience beyond calculating years of work history listed keyword placement. Instead of just looking at keywords, it’s looking at everything you’re saying in your resume and drawing conclusions about your skills and experience.

If you’re providing enough context throughout your resume to show the results or outcomes an employer can expect from you based on past performance, AI will help drive your resume to the top of applicant lists.

4 | Narrow Down Your Job Target 

The most effective, job-winning resume is going to be targeted for a specific job. If you’re applying for jobs online, this means the specific job posting. If you’re networking, this means you need to get laser-focused on what your ideal role is to position yourself as the best fit for the job that you want.

Targeting your resume shows that you understand the goals of the role you’re applying for or pursuing in your job search. A targeted resume will also demonstrate that you can meet and exceed those goals based on your track record over the course of your work history and educational background.

If you can’t narrow down your job target, you should either create a targeted resume for each of your job targets or consider working with a career coach. Career Exploration & Transition Coaching is highly recommended if you need help getting a clear direction and focus for your job search!

5 | Design Your Resume For ATS

The next step is designing your resume for Applicant Tracking Systems. This software has been around since the 90s—so there’s a ton of outdated information online about it—but ATS has evolved dramatically over the last 5-10 years. Here’s what you need to know:

• Applicant Tracking Systems can’t read text placed in headers or footers, so be careful where you place your contact information in MS Word Documents.
• Applicant Tracking Systems can’t read text placed in text boxes, so avoid using these to organize information on your resume.
• Applicant Tracking Systems scan the text from left to right and often don’t read and store information formatted in columns correctly.
• Applicant Tracking Systems don’t care about bold, underlined, italicized, colored, or color-filled text so you can use these design elements strategically to make your resume easier to skim.
• Applicant Tracking Systems don’t see photos, graphs, or charts embedded in your resume (JPG or PNG files)—just don’t rely on them to convey important information that isn’t in the text.
• Applicant Tracking Systems can read PDFs but are known to read MS Word Documents more accurately—heavily formatted and graphically designed PDF resumes specifically often can’t be previewed in ATS.

To maximize your chances of getting through ATS, start with a new Microsoft Word Document and organize your information in a one-column layout. Make sure your contact information can be found in the body of your resume rather than in the header or footer.

Keep in mind that Applicant Tracking software is designed to look for certain keywords and text arrangements to fill in a form with your information within the software. Use standard section headings (Skills or Areas of Expertise, Experience, Education, Certifications, etc.) to make sure your information is parsed and organized in this software’s searchable database correctly.

Related Article: ATS Explained: How Resume Screening Software Works

6 | Use Color Strategically (& Conservatively)

If your resume looks like every other black-and-white resume from the 90s, you’re not helping yourself at all. Your resume isn’t just a list of your work history and skills—it’s a marketing document, and color psychology is a key branding tactic used in marketing. Your personal brand, or how you want to present yourself to employers using both visual cues and messaging, is directly linked to your personality. Would you want to hire a black-and-white personality?

Use color strategically to impact an employer’s perspective of you. Keep your resume looking professional by using conservative color for your name, section headings, and other design elements sparingly. Pick no more than two colors, but keep the rest of your text easy to read with a standard black font.

Is the thought of getting creative with your resume design giving you anxiety? I’ve already done the heavy lifting for you and designed modern resume templates for college students and recent graduates, those making major career changes, mid-career professionals, and IT professionals in a variety of color schemes.

Struggling to get through Applicant Tracking Software? These templates are designed to get through ATS and stand out in all the right ways when in front of hiring decision-makers

7 | Include Your LinkedIn Profile Link

If you’re not on LinkedIn, you're already falling behind other applicants. Why? Your LinkedIn profile is often the first stop during a background check because it’s an easy and free way for HR teams to validate your work history. I won’t even get into how LinkedIn recommendations on your profile are the new letters of recommendation…

Related Article: How To Get Raving LinkedIn Recommendations

A LinkedIn profile also enables you to humanize your job application when it’s less professional on a resume such as non-career-related volunteer experience, side projects, and work-life balance activities. It’s your profile on a networking platform, so it should be more approachable and conversational. An even more important advantage is this: You can add more information to your LinkedIn profile than a targeted 1-2 page resume will permit.

Add your LinkedIn profile link to your contact information on your resume and indicate at the end of your resume that more information can be found on your profile to speed up the background check and boost your application.

8 | Remove Dates Older Than 2010

Can you believe that 2010 was 14 years ago?! Unless you’re applying for a job that specifically wants 15+ years of experience with a particular skill (which is becoming less common for many executive-level roles), listing dates on your resume prior to 2010 is only going to age you… and not in a good way.

Age bias and discrimination are serious issues that impact job seekers over 45 more often than they realize, but there are other negative responses to drawing attention to your age on your resume. For example, your extended years of experience may be threatening to a potential younger manager. The extended years of experience may also imply that you’re only looking to bridge an employment gap until a better-fitting job opportunity presents itself.

The extended years can give the impression that you’re fixated on outdated methodologies, best practices, and technologies rather than present you as a forward-thinking professional.

I often work with seasoned job seekers in their 50s and 60s looking for their last job before retirement, drastically changing careers, or returning to work after an early retirement. Eliminating half of their careers from their resumes can be terrifying at first but so rewarding in a matter of weeks. Removing work history prior to 2010 can bring focus to your resume and show employers that you’re more interested in the future than your past.

9 | Learn How To Analyze Job Postings

Job postings were created by HR teams based on the staffing needs described by a team leader or hiring manager. They tell you exactly what they’re looking for in an ideal candidate, so why would you leave these details off your resume? I’ve worked with a handful of job seekers who insisted on removing critically important details from their resumes because they didn’t want employers to expect them to do certain tasks… It’s mind-boggling to me.

Analyzing job postings isn’t as technical or challenging as it may sound. You can use an online keyword analysis tool like Jobscan.

Related Article: Is Jobscan Worth It? Jobscan Review (2024 Update)

Or you can read through the job posting from the perspective of an employer and answer these questions:

• What are the top goals for this role?
• What are the required qualifications and preferred skills for this job?
• What traits will an ideal candidate have?
• What other words or phrases describe the role or work?

If you can read through a job posting and identify the answers to these questions, then you’ll know what needs to be on your resume to present you as the best fit for the job.

10 | Identify The Top 8 Job-related Skills

Some job postings are formidable. They are challenging enough to skim through—let alone analyze—and will give you the impression that even the most senior executive of that company isn’t the right fit for the job. Your resume doesn’t need to list every single qualification and desired trait listed on the job posting. If it did, your resume would look like it was 100% copied and pasted from the job posting.

You can avoid that by identifying the top 8 job-related qualifications and skills to focus on within your resume. It’s more important that your resume contains the highest-weighted keywords that Applicant Tracking Systems will be looking for while still sounding like you’re telling your story for the human reader. 

Remember, it’s the balancing act that gives you credibility.

11 | Know The Company’s Mission & Vision

If you don’t know the company’s mission and vision, you have no business applying for the job. Your role at any given company is to help that company meet its goals. If you can show that you understand this in your resume, you’re going to stand out from the candidates still starting their resumes with a self-serving Objective Statement or boring Resume Summary.

This information is usually in the company description paragraph in a job posting, but can also be found on:

• The company website
• Other social media profiles

Indicating that you understand the mission and vision of your previous employer by describing how your efforts contributed to these in your resume will also give you a competitive advantage.

12 | Introduce Yourself With A Branding Statement

Speaking of outdated Objective Statements and boring Resume Summaries, your resume is not about you. Yes, you read that right. Get rid of that self-serving introduction that is frankly wasting valuable real estate. Once your resume gets in front of a human reader, the top third of your resume is the first (and often the only) section that will be read, so make it count!

Encourage the reader to get to know you more by creating a Branding Statement that doesn’t just introduce your qualifications or highlight your top job-related skills but really showcases the unique value you offer or the results you will produce for the employer in a short paragraph (no more than 4-6 lines).

Need to nix that outdated Objective Statement or boring Summary? This Branding Statement Cheat Sheet will help you position yourself as the best fit for the job you want

13 | Make Your Experience Section Easy To Skim

Nearly every resume I’ve seen, prior to working with the job seeker, suffers from one of these three crippling afflictions:

• Long blocks of text with no bullets which forces the reader to read every line of the resume in order to find the details they’re looking for (qualifications, skills, achievements, etc.)
• Too many bullets which also forces the reader to read every line of the resume to find the details they’re looking for (qualifications, skills, achievements, etc.)
• Not enough information to determine if you’re the best fit for the job or not

If your resume suffers from either of the first two afflictions, I have bad news for you. Corporate recruiters, HR professionals, and hiring managers are not going to spend the time reading each and every line of your resume before deciding whether or not you’re going to move forward in the hiring process. If your resume takes more than 6 seconds to skim, it will likely be tossed.

Make your Experience section easy to skim by alternating between short paragraph summaries and bullet lists that draw attention to your achievements, major contributions, or top skills in action.

14 | Add Keywords To Your Job Summaries

Your resume needs to tell employers that you are the best fit for the job. If your resume doesn’t have enough information to achieve this, here’s a quick and easy fix for you. Briefly describe the typical tasks and responsibilities you held, but only those that relate to the job you’re applying for. This is particularly successful for job seekers targeting higher-level positions or changing careers entirely.

Better yet, optimize your job summaries by adding keywords found in the job posting. These are often the search terms used to search, sort, and filter through applicants and will greatly improve your ranking when your resume is battling Applicant Tracking Systems. Plus, it shows employers that you’re paying attention to their terminology.

15 | Follow This Storytelling Framework

Don’t just say you have excellent project management skills or that you’ve managed projects. In writing classes, you’ll frequently hear the phrase, “Show, don’t tell.” This concept is especially true for writing a great resume. Don’t just claim you have certain skills and abilities, but tell your unique story of how you made a difference by applying those skills and abilities in the workplace.

Your resume should highlight how you demonstrated certain skills and what resulted in a fair amount of context. The storytelling framework that corporate recruiters and hiring managers love to see looks something like this:

Results or what you achieved + compared to before or why your efforts were necessary + the actions you took or skill(s) you applied

If this sounds like a time-consuming way to update your resume, it doesn’t have to be.

Give employers what they want! This Skills Auditor and bonus Work History Examples Guide helps you organize your skills and translate them into action-oriented statements for your Experience section

16 | Don’t Hide Your Resilience During The Pandemic

So many people were impacted by the spread of COVID-19 in 2020. Whether you lost your job, started working from home for the first time in your career, or juggled work and at-home schooling for your children, you had to pivot and make changes to your daily routines. Amplify your resume with these transferable skills!

Fill this space in your Experience section with the volunteer experience, continued education, professional development, or at-home experiences that demonstrate:

• Leadership Development
• Skills Development
• Flexibility/Adaptability
• Change Management
• Process Improvement

If you were fortunate enough to not be furloughed or laid off, make sure to update your Experience section with examples of how you’ve led or influenced change that enabled you to continue driving business or serving your customers.

17 | Own Your Gaps

When your resume is a little top-empty, meaning you’ve been unemployed or taking an extended leave of absence, there are several tactics that can help you take ownership of your gaps without distracting employers from your qualifications.

For example, I worked with a client who intentionally planned for and took a career sabbatical to travel for 2 years. During that time, he inconsistently did some part-time consulting in his field but he couldn’t share details publically on his resume. He also started a podcast where he shared industry-related insights and expertise. We used this information to own his gap by summarizing the cultural experience while traveling, the consulting experience, and the thought leadership experience.

Here are a few other practical ways to fill the gap:

• Working on a certification program or taking college courses? You can fill the gap by listing “(Area of Study) Student” as your job title, “(Institute or University Name)” as your employer, and summarizing the coursework or projects you’ve completed for your experience.
• Caring for family members? You can fill the gap by listing “Stay-at-home Parent” or “Caregiver” as your job title, “(Last Name) Home” as your employer, and summarizing your most relevant transferable skills in action as your experience.
• Traveled or re-entering the workplace after a few years of retirement? Briefly but transparently summarize how you spent your time, even if it isn’t related to your new career goals. If you gained or utilized any relevant transferable skills, great! If not, keep this light and short (1-2 lines max).

18 | Showcase Your Achievements & Major Contributions

If you think a flashy graphic resume design is what you need to stand out, you’re not thinking like an employer. Measurable achievements—or achievements that you can quantify—matter more than anything else on your resume! The measurable achievements you have made are unique to you and play a key role in presenting the unique value you offer to employers.

Don’t get caught up in thinking, “I’m not in sales, so I can’t come up with any measurable achievements.” Describing the results of any major contribution that you made toward achieving company or department goals constitutes an achievement even if quantifying it might be a bit more difficult.

Related Article:   How To Add More Achievements To Your Resume

19 | Stand Out The Right Way With Context

It isn’t enough to state that you have certain skills or abilities on your resume. When working with new clients, I used to ask, “What do you think makes you stand out from other applicants?” The answers were commonly some version of “my skills” or “my years of experience.” The reality is that most applicants will have similar skills and years of experience!

So what makes you stand out from these applicants? It’s the context you can provide that shows your level of experience or the scope of your work.

For example, how large was the budget that you managed? Someone with experience managing a multimillion-dollar budget is clearly at a different level than someone managing a budget under $500K. Or how widespread was the team that you oversaw? Someone who oversees a geographically dispersed team of managers with their own teams has a larger scope of responsibility than someone who has only supervised a team of 3. Or by how much did you complete a project prior to the deadline - in 3 months or in 3 days?

20 | Streamline Your Work History Timeline

Applicant Tracking Systems and HR teams want to see a clear, consistent work history timeline. HR teams are often more forgiving, but getting past ATS is still your first challenge. This may mean adjusting the timeline you’re listing on your resume, and I’m not talking about changing dates or lying.

You can downplay gaps in employment by listing only your last so many years of uninterrupted work history and summarizing your previous experience without dates in a short Additional Experience note at the end of your Experience section. Streamlining your work history timeline may also mean removing shorter-term and less relevant positions to eliminate the appearance of “job-hopping.”

Your resume should be a snapshot of your most relevant skills and experience, not an autobiography.

21 | Keep Interest On Your Qualifications, Not Your Age

I know I touched on this before by indicating that dates older than 2010 have no place on your resume (unless indicated for an executive-level role), but there are other details on your resume that may be drawing more attention to your age than your qualifications.

• Unless you are a high school student, remove your high school & graduation date.
• Unless you graduated within the last five years, remove college graduation dates.
• If you have an aol.com or yahoo.com email address, consider creating a free Gmail or Outlook account.
• Remove outdated software skills (or software versions for you, IT job seekers!)

If you’re questioning why age is such a turn-off to employers, think about it from their perspective. Drawing attention to 20+ years of experience can also imply that you desire a higher salary than another qualified candidate listing fewer years of experience. Even if you’re experience doesn’t imply a desired salary outside of their budget, a clearly younger candidate may be a safer bet when it comes to training and culture fit.

22 | Trim Down Your Education Section

Why certain industries (like technology) require college degrees still baffles me! Much of the information learned in college will be obsolete in 5-10 years, but it’s still a prominent qualification that gives many job seekers anxiety. There are still a vast number of employers who value experience over higher education, and your Education section may actually be hindering you from landing the jobs you want.

If you’re applying for a job requiring a bachelor’s degree but you’re listing your advanced degrees (e.g. master’s or doctorate), you may be presenting yourself as overqualified or too expensive. Your advanced degree is a HUGE accomplishment, but you need to target your Education section to reflect the desires of the company.

Missing a required or preferred college degree? Using LinkedIn for personal branding, networking, and employer targeting can help you get your foot in the door and bypass ATS altogether!

23 | Proofread & Edit For Human Readers

Job seekers often fall into a trap when they spend hours researching how to write a resume that gets through ATS. They get a little keyword-crazy and even start copying and pasting general statements from job postings directly into their resume.

Fortunately for you, Applicant Tracking Systems are getting smarter. Most modern ATS has evolved to search for messages rather than keywords. You now have the freedom to tell your unique story without having to use the words and phrases verbatim from the job posting.

Once you’ve finished writing your resume, read through and proofread it for human readability. Does it sound like a robot wrote it, or does it sound like your unique career story?

24 | Update Your Resume Regularly

How often do you update your resume? Let me guess… once a year or every few years when you hear about a great job opportunity. That’s usually when my clients come back to me looking to update their resumes!

Don’t put unnecessary stress on yourself. Start keeping a list of any projects (large or small) or contributions made toward achieving company goals every month. Every six months, update your resume to reflect changing responsibilities or achievements. When you complete on-the-job training or online courses to keep your skills fresh, add them to your resume.

The key is to always be prepared to apply for a new and better job when it presents itself instead of scrambling to make a great first impression.

Resume writing is a balancing act, and your resume has to be written for three audiences: Applicant Tracking Systems with or without AI, recruiters or HR teams with and without in-depth knowledge of your field or industry, and a hiring manager or direct supervisor deciding who stands out as the best fit. Writing a great resume means telling your unique career story while naturally integrating the keywords ATS will be looking for to narrow down applicants to the most qualified candidates.

If your resume isn’t landing you many interviews, use this list of resume tips for 2024 to refresh your resume and start positioning yourself as the best fit for the job that you want.

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Steph Cartwright, CPRW

Steph Cartwright is a Certified Resume Writer, LinkedIn Strategist, and Founder of Off The Clock Resumes. She helps job seekers get unstuck and get a foot in the door at the companies they’d love to work for with their resumes, LinkedIn profiles, and job search plans.

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43 Resume Tips That Will Help You Get Hired

When you haven’t updated your resume in a while, it can be hard to know where to start. What experiences and accomplishments should you include for the jobs you’ve got your eye on? What new resume rules and trends should you be following? And seriously, one page or two?

Well, search no more. The resume advice you need is outlined in one article. It also has an option to input your career, years of experience, and employment benefits that are important to you, providing you open job postings. Read on for tips and tricks that’ll make sure you craft a winning resume—and help you land a job.

Check out this great article by The Muse.

Reeder Consulting: College and Career Paths is a specialist in the career development field and the #1 career counseling company in San Antonio, TX working with clients in all 50 states. We help individuals engage in career and aptitude testing to process information through meaningful conversations and give clarity to the stress of career decisions to Proceed with Confidence. www.reederconsulting.com

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30 Resume Writing Tips to Get Hired Faster

June 5, 2024 • Written by: Irina Scarborough

Your resume is the first impression you make on a potential employer, so it’s crucial to make it count. A well-crafted resume can help you stand out from the competition and land your dream job.

As a former corporate recruiter, here are my top resume writing tips that can help you create a winning resume and help you land your next position quicker!

1. Add Measurable Accomplishments

Employers love to see measurable accomplishments because they provide concrete evidence of your abilities and impact. Instead of just listing your job duties, highlight specific achievements with numbers and data. For example, rather than saying “responsible for sales,” say “increased sales by 25% in the first quarter.”

This not only demonstrates your effectiveness but also gives employers a clear picture of what you can bring to their organization. Quantifying your successes is one of the most powerful resume writing tips to make your application stand out.

2. Use a Clear and Readable Font

Choose a clear, easy-to-read font like Arial or Garamond. Avoid using flashy fonts that can be difficult to read. Consistency in font size and style helps maintain a professional look.

3. Keep it Concise & Relevant

Keep your resume concise and to the point. Aim for no more than two pages, and use bullet points to highlight your achievements. Being succinct makes it easier for recruiters to quickly scan your resume and find the information they need.

Including everything you’ve ever done may be temping, however anything that’s outdated will do more harm than good.

4. Use Active Verbs

Use active verbs like “managed,” “developed,” and “created” to describe your accomplishments. This makes your resume more engaging and shows that you’re results-oriented. Active language communicates energy and proactivity.

5. Quantify Your Achievements

Use numbers and data to quantify your achievements. For example, “increased sales by 25%” or “Managed a team of 10 employees.” Quantifying your successes gives employers a clear picture of your impact.

6. Include Relevant Keywords

Include relevant keywords in your resume that match the job description. This can help your resume get past applicant tracking systems (ATS). Keywords also show that your skills and experiences align with the job requirements.

7. Highlight Your Skills

Create a skills section that highlights your most relevant skills. This can help you stand out from other candidates. Prioritize skills that are specifically mentioned in the job posting.

8. Use White Space

Use white space to make your resume easy to read. Don’t overcrowd your resume with text. Proper spacing makes your resume more aesthetically pleasing and easier to navigate.

9. Use Consistent Formatting

Use consistent formatting throughout your resume. This makes your resume look more polished and professional. Consistent headings, font sizes, and bullet points contribute to a cohesive look.

10. Include a Professional Summary

Ditch the outdated Objective paragraph and include a professional summary at the top of your resume that highlights your experience and skills.

This brief section should be tailored to the job and provide a snapshot of your qualifications.

11. Use Bullet Points

Use bullet points to highlight your achievements and make your resume more readable. Aim for 5-6 bullet points per position. Bullet points make it easy for recruiters to quickly scan and digest your information.

12. Proofread Your Resume

Proofread your resume carefully for spelling and grammar errors. Typos can make a bad impression on potential employers. Consider using tools like Grammarly or having a friend review your resume.

13. Use a Professional Email Address

Use a professional email address on your resume. Avoid using email addresses like “ [email protected] .” A professional email address should ideally include your name.

It’s a good idea to also use a modern service provider like Gmail, instead of Hotmail or Yahoo.

14. Include Relevant Certifications

Include any relevant certifications you’ve earned, like a Project Management Professional (PMP) certification. Certifications can demonstrate your expertise and commitment to professional development.

15. Show Your Career Progression

Show your career progression by listing your work experience in reverse chronological order. This format highlights your most recent and relevant experiences first.

16. Use Simple Language

Use simple language that’s easy to understand. Avoid using jargon or technical terms that the employer may not be familiar with. Clear, straightforward language ensures that your resume is accessible to all readers.

17. Keep Your Contact Information Updated

Make sure your contact information is up-to-date. This includes your phone number, email address, and LinkedIn profile. Double-checking these details ensures potential employers can easily reach you.

Here’s an example:

City, State | 123–346–7890 | [email protected] | linkedin.com/in/username

18. Include Volunteer Work

Include any volunteer work you’ve done that’s relevant to the position you’re applying for. Volunteer work can demonstrate your commitment, skills, and willingness to go above and beyond.

19. Use Action-Oriented Language

Use action-oriented language that shows what you’ve accomplished. For example, “increased revenue” instead of “responsible for revenue.” This style of writing makes your achievements sound more dynamic and impactful.

20. Use a Professional Tone

Use a professional tone throughout your resume. Avoid using slang or informal language. Maintaining a professional tone ensures your resume is taken seriously.

21. Include Relevant Coursework

Include any relevant coursework you’ve taken that’s relevant to the job. This can be especially useful for recent graduates or those changing careers, as it highlights your education and training.

22. Avoid Cliché Buzzwords

Take out phrases like “responsible for” and replace them with powerful verbs. Using precise language can make your resume more compelling.

23. Use a Chronological or Functional Format

Choose a chronological or functional resume format based on your work experience and skills. A chronological format lists your work experience in reverse chronological order, while a functional format highlights your skills and achievements.

24. Use Keywords Wisely

Use keywords wisely in your resume to help it get past ATS systems. Avoid keyword stuffing, which can make your resume look spammy. Integrate keywords naturally within the context of your experiences.

26. Match the Resume to Your LinkedIn Profile

Make sure your dates and positions match up with what’s on your LinkedIn Profile. Consistency between your resume and LinkedIn profile builds credibility.

27. Be Honest

Be honest in your resume and don’t exaggerate your qualifications or experience. Employers can easily verify your credentials, so it’s important to be truthful. Honesty fosters trust and integrity.

29. Get Feedback

Get feedback on your resume from friends, family, or a professional resume writer (we’re happy to help). They can provide valuable insights and help you identify areas for improvement. Constructive feedback can enhance the effectiveness of your resume.

30. Keep It Simple

Pick a resume template that is simple. You want to avoid any tables, fancy graphics, and fonts. The right format is extremely important for getting through the ATS and also catching the eyes of a recruiter.

1. What font size is best for resumes?

A font size of 10-12 points is typically best for resumes. It’s easy to read and looks professional.

2. How can I make my resume stand out?

Use action verbs, quantify your achievements, and ensure your resume is tailored to the job description. Proofread to avoid any errors. These resume writing tips can significantly improve your chances.

3. What is an ATS?

ATS stands for Applicant Tracking System, a tool used by employers to filter and rank resumes. Including relevant keywords can help your resume pass through these systems.

4. Should I include a photo on my resume?

In most cases, it’s best to avoid including a photo on your resume, as it can lead to bias in the hiring process.

Liked these resume writing tips, but need more support? Ready to work with us at Resumeology ? With 17 years of experience, we help clients go from overlooked to interview-booked.  View our services here.

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30 Resume Tips To Help You Get Hired

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If you haven’t updated your resume in a while or you don’t have one, it can be hard to figure out where to start and what to put on it. While you may find your ‘beer pong champion’ title to be impressive, it’s not something you want to add to your skills on your resume.

We have put together a list of 30 tips to help your resume stand out from the crowd and help you get hired.

Key Takeaways:

Keep your resume relevant and recent to keep your resume to one page.

Tailor your resume to specific jobs and add keywords from the job description that are relevant to your skills.

Proofread your resume and have someone else read over it for any mistakes before you send it in.

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Keep it to one page. Ah, the old one-page resume controversy. Some don’t have a problem with two — but only ever use more than one page if you really need it. If you’re just getting out of school, chances are, you won’t.

Keep it simple. This goes for everything — design, layout, color (which might apply for certain creative jobs), font, and yes, even language.

Keep it reverse chronological. Always list your most recent experience first. You should only have the most recent 10-15 years of your career history on your resume, and only add things that ae relevant to the job.

Leave out the objective statement. Except in a few circumstances (see No. 22), you really don’t need a summary at the top of your resume.

Don’t include everything. If you’ve had a lot of jobs, this shouldn’t necessarily be a list of all of them. This is a document designed to market you to a potential employer. So…

Keep it relevant… Make sure that the jobs, experience, and accolades that you do include are relevant to the position you’re applying for.

…and Recent You’ll also want to make sure you’re not digging 10 years back to that one job you had that seemed relevant… Keep things recent.

Unless You Don’t Have any Relevant Work Experience… Don’t fret! If you’re new to the workforce and don’t have much, or any, work experience, you can still include experience . Think about what you did in school that was relevant to the position. Be specific on your achievements (we’ll get to specific specifics in a moment!), and explain why you’re the right person for the job in your cover letter .

Minimize the bullets. You should have no more than 5 bullet points under any position. Nuff said.

But Make it specific. An example of making it specific would be including actual, measurable data. “Implemented new website design, increasing company’s revenue by 40 percent over 6 months” is a lot more specific (and impressive!) than “re-designed website.”

Use keywords. If you haven’t heard yet, we hate to be the ones to tell you… but recruiters use keywords! In fact, some resumes never even make it before employer’s eyes, because they lack keywords. THIS IS IMPORTANT! Look at the job description. Which words do they use most often? Be sure to include them.

Don’t lie! This might seem obvious, but you’d be surprised how many people stretch the truth on their resumes, only to find that if they do get the job—they’re in trouble. So do yourself a favor and don’t lie, or else you might end up getting a job that’s over your head!

Don’t forget “non-work” work. Again, this is great for those who don’t have much work experience, but also good information to include (if it’s relevant) for those who do. Volunteer jobs, projects, even hobbies if they’re relevant to the position.

Experience first, then education. If you have work experience, be sure to put it first. Then list your educational experience and achievements, also in reverse chronological order.

Include any awards from school. Achievements and awards relevant to the position speak louder than a high GPA. If you graduated college with high honors, make a note of it because that is something a hiring manager will find impressive.

List your skills. This is a great time to run wild with those keywords found in the job description. If they’re looking for someone with Photoshop experience, be sure to list it as a skill (if it is a skill—remember, DON’T LIE!)

Let your personality shine through. To be clear, this doesn’t mean be cute or cheesy. But, if you’re applying for a creative job, go ALL out. You’ll need to stand out. And feel free to include your interests in the resume, if they are relevant to the position.

Okay, at least don’t be boring. These guys are looking at hundreds of resumes. Let yours stand out .

Font matters. One way to let your resume stand out is with design — and particularly, with font. Don’t fall into the Times New Roman black hole! Use something simple, clean, and modern.

The best font’s to stick with are Arial, Verdana, and Helvetica. And try to keep the font size to 10-12 point font.

Exclude those “shorter than impressive” jobs. If you worked someplace for only a few months or less, do yourself a favor and leave it off your resume. It might make you seem unreliable to future employers.

If You have work gaps… be sneaky about it. If you have long gaps, a few months or so, between jobs, you can employ this little trick: Just list the years you worked there (2012-2013), rather than listing the exact start and end dates.

BUT do explain really long gaps in your work. This is the perfect example of when it IS okay to include a summary at the top of your resume. Here you can not only explain your best skills and accomplishments, but briefly, why you’re deciding to re-enter the workforce.

Take it easy on the jargon. The theme for your resume should be clarity and simplicity. Keep the “impressive” jargon to an absolute minimum.

And on those “filler” words. Examples: Team player, hard worker, creative genius—whatever! If you’re a team player, tell them how. Don’t fall into clichés and vagueness to describe yourself.

Mix up your word choice. If you start each of your bullet points below your experience with “In charge of ______” this is going to get old pretty fast. Mix it up. But —

Stick with the same parts of speech. Meaning, start each bullet point with the same part of speech, like a noun or verb. Recommended: Start with a verb, as it suggests action throughout your resume.

Proofread. Make sure to proofread before submitting it. Nothing looks more unprofessional than having spelling and grammar mistakes.

Be intentional with your file name. This is such a simple mistake, but it is a big one — especially if you’re applying to multiple jobs! You’ll either need to change your resume’s file name to fit the job you’re applying for (example: GOOGLE2016RESUMECK.DOC) or just keep it vague (CKRESUME2016.DOC). You just don’t want to make the mistake of sending your GOOGLE resume to, say, YAHOO.

Proofread – AGAIN. It doesn’t hurt to look over it one more time. You can even have a friend or family member look it over so they can catch anything you missed the first time.

Tailor your resume often. Unless the jobs you’re applying for are remarkably similar, you’ll need to tailor your resume each time you send it out, to include the important keywords in the job description and any other information that should be more emphasized. You’ll also want to keep your resume updated as you gain experience, so you don’t forget to add it in later.

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Chris Kolmar is a co-founder of Zippia and the editor-in-chief of the Zippia career advice blog. He has hired over 50 people in his career, been hired five times, and wants to help you land your next job. His research has been featured on the New York Times, Thrillist, VOX, The Atlantic, and a host of local news. More recently, he's been quoted on USA Today, BusinessInsider, and CNBC.

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23 Practical Resume Tips to Help You Get Hired (Plus a Resume Example)

I’m just going to say this outright: resume tips are not going to get you hired. That is, resume tips won’t get you hired, but they will help get you hired.

The first step to landing a job is having a great resume, and having a great resume requires a lot of thought and effort put into every little detail. Tips are great for nailing down all of the details, and implementing many resume tips can add up to an overall better resume.

To help you put these tips into practice, the resume example below has been designed using the same tips offered in this article. Use this article and the resume example to guide you in creating a document that will land on the hiring manager’s desk instead of in the trash.

The Resume Tips

1. choose the right format.

There are four main types of resumes: chronological, functional, combination, and targeted. If you have a lot of experience in your field, you should use a chronological resume, but if your career path has been irregular or erratic, you should go with a functional resume . A combination resume lists both your experience and your skills, and the targeted resume is geared toward specific job requirements. You’ll want to choose the one that’s best for your background before you even begin writing your resume.

2. Make sure the style suits your background

Similarly, your resume should fit your background. There are a number of styles you can choose from, but three of the most common are classic, creative, and modern. A classic resume is best suited for professional jobs, as it provides a clean and simple format with information that is easy to find. A creative resume will help demonstrate your visual capabilities in an original and expressive way. Finally, a modern resume shows that you are up to date with current trends by providing a neat and refreshing document that avoids the outdated look of traditional resumes.

3. Know your audience

In any kind of writing, the best way to ensure you will write well is to know your audience. You should have a very good idea of what your potential employers do, how you can help them do what they do, and what you can get from doing something with them. Once you know these points, you’ll be able to begin writing your resume.

4. Look over your contact information

Write down your contact information at the top of the resume, where it will be easy for hiring managers to spot. Make sure you look it over several times. It’s a good idea to have somebody else look it over, too, because the last thing you want is to have written down the wrong information or to have left anything out.

5. List your experience, achievements, education, and skills

This is obvious, but outlining your resume in major sections will provide a clean document that is easy to follow and understand while providing all of the necessary information. You’ll need to include contact information, key skills, awards and achievements, education, employment, volunteering, and anything else that may be relevant for your prospective employer to know.

6. Only include what’s relevant

On that note, you should include only relevant information in your resume. If it doesn’t apply to the job at hand, that’s okay, but if it also doesn’t share any of the same skill sets, objectives, roles, responsibilities, or environment, you may not wish to include it on your resume. Conversely, if you don’t have a lot to include, be smart about how you use your time so you can include volunteer work or online courses that are relevant where nothing else is.

7. Use action verbs to describe your past roles

Action verbs draw the attention of your reader. However, avoid being too repetitive in your word choices. For creative jobs, you may wish to include verbs like brainstormed or designed . Similarly, if you are applying to a job with a leadership role, you’ll want to include words like established or improved .

8. Take keywords from the job description

If you’re struggling to come up with action verbs, you may want to take a look at the job description. Employers often, consciously or not, include action verbs that best suit the prospective employee’s skill sets. Since they know what they’re looking for, you can use these verbs to your advantage to come across as the perfect candidate.

9. Maintain a consistent tense

It’s important that you maintain a consistent tense in your action statements. You’ll use past tense for any jobs from the past and the present tense for anything you are still in the process of completing. Make sure you don’t switch tenses from bullet point to bullet point; doing so isn’t just wrong, it also gets confusing very quickly!

10. Avoid personal pronouns

Rather than using personal pronouns to describe your experiences, use strong, direct action statements to show potential employers what you have accomplished throughout your career and to give your main accomplishments the most attention.

11. Keep away from buzzwords

Stay away from overused descriptors like hardworking or team player . You can be hardworking and a team player, but instead of using watered-down, blanket terms, describe the accomplishments you’ve achieved through your dedication and ability to work with others.

12. Limit yourself to short and straightforward statements

Keep everything as brief as possible without losing context or necessary information. Include your core responsibilities in a detailed and concrete way. This will help you avoid generic statements (and the aforementioned personal pronouns and buzzwords). You should also try to remove any words that serve as filler, like unnecessary adjectives.

13. Only include what you can prove

For example, only list tangible skills or attributes, and avoid listing personal skills like adaptable or organized . Though these qualities are important, they are less impactful than tangible occupational skills because personal skills are much more difficult to prove.

14. Don’t lie

Never lie, exaggerate, or otherwise stretch the truth on a resume. Even if lying gets you to the interview stage, if employers discover that someone they have hired has lied about his or her academic or professional history, they will very likely terminate the employee immediately.

15. Choose or design a visually appropriate resume

An applicant may have impressive credentials and an extensive professional history, but without proper resume formatting, these credentials may be buried in an impenetrable block of text. You have worked hard to compile your resume’s content, so take care to ensure that you use proper formatting to grab a potential employer’s attention quickly.

16. Let the content speak for itself

Since your achievements and skills are the focus of your resume, you shouldn’t let its format consume the actual content. It is easy to get carried away with visuals, whether they’re colors, objects or fonts. However, your resume should be legible and professional rather than flashy or distracting.

17. Allow white space

Incorporating white space in a resume can be difficult; after all, you have a lot of information to include in a limited area. How can you make sure your resume is balanced? Use the quadrant test. Divide your resume into four equal sections, and make sure the text is evenly distributed in each section.

18. Customize your resume for every job

It’s a good idea to edit and revise your resume for every position you apply to, unless the resume will be submitted to several similar organizations with the same job requirements. This may seem tedious, but the more effort you put into creating your resume, the more you will gain from the entire job-seeking process.

19. Have references ready

You typically don’t have to provide your references on your resume, but you should prepare a list of references and their contact information so that they are available upon request. Ask the appropriate parties, and be sure that you notify your references when you are applying for a position so they can expect to be contacted in the near future.

20. Make sure nothing is missing

Ensure that all of the required sections are present, especially any information that is asked for in the job description or by the employer. In addition, make sure your name and contact information are there so the hiring manager can find you! When applying online, make sure you’ve completed all elements of the online application form, as the failure to do so demonstrates an inability to follow instructions.

21. Optimize your resume for applicant tracking systems

Applicant tracking systems automatically scan hundreds of applications for information related to job postings, including keywords, employment history, past employers, and educational background. So embed your resume with terms or phrases that represent the qualifications that are required for a position.

22. Think clean and simple

Look over your resume once it’s filled out. Are your name and contact information easy to find? Do the headings stand out from the body of the text? Is everything uniform? Is the formatting consistent? Have you used your white space efficiently? Are your statements short? Is everything legible? Are all of the fonts and visuals appropriate? Revise and make sure everything is clean and simple, from formatting to the actual content.

23. Have your resume professionally edited and proofread

It’s one thing to look over your resume for typos and errors; it’s another entirely to have a professional editor edit your resume. An editor doesn’t just catch spelling and grammar problems. He or she will also ensure that your biggest strengths are highlighted, everything is relevant, your resume is tailored specifically for the job at hand, the formatting is consistent, etc.

A resume on the hiring manager’s desk means your foot is in the door. After looking at the resume example and implementing these practical resume tips, you have a document that’s ready to land you a job!

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• 17 Resume Tips to Get Seen...

17 Resume Tips to Get Seen and Hired Faster

13 min read · Updated on February 13, 2024

Your resume is only as good as the message it delivers

Are you struggling to write the perfect resume? If the answer is yes, you're not alone. Unless you've had a lot of experience creating resumes, chances are that you're unsure about what to include and how to create a truly compelling message that can capture an employer's interest. If so, then you could almost certainly benefit from some incredibly useful resume tips.

In this post, we'll explore 17 of the top resume tips and tricks used by many of the most accomplished resume writers in the industry. By incorporating these tips into your resume creation strategy, you should be able to craft the type of resume that can help you to win more interviews and land a fantastic job.

The basics: top 10 resume tips you need to know

We'll begin with the top 10 resume tips every job seeker needs to know to craft a compelling resume. One of the reasons that so many job seekers struggle with resume creation is that they just don't know what employers expect to see in a solid resume offering. These 10 tips can help you to ensure that your resume meets those expectations in a way that captures their attention.

1.     Gather your resume information before you begin

Our first tip may seem obvious, but you'd be surprised how many job seekers fail to follow it. Before you even begin to lay out your resume, start by gathering all the information you'll need to spin your resume narrative. Try to keep it as organized as possible, so that you have the facts you need readily available as you create each part of your resume.

That information includes:

All the contact details that an employer will need to reach out with an interview or job offer

A comprehensive list of your skills

Your work history, including company names, job titles, and employment dates

A list of your most notable achievements in each role

Your educational history, including certifications and continuing education

Information about any volunteer activity

Details about relevant awards

Any other relevant information that can demonstrate your qualifications

2.     Select the right format for your resume

You should also focus on picking the right format for your resume - a decision that will largely depend on your experience level and career needs. There are three formats available:

Reverse-chronological. This format option is simple to use and the most popular choice for job seekers. It simply requires you to list your employment history and education in reverse-chronological order, starting with the most recent position you've held. As for why it's so popular, the answer is simple: most employers prefer to see resumes using this format.

Functional. The functional resume format is sometimes used by job seekers who have little experience or who are trying to switch careers. It focuses most of its attention on your skills, rather than career experience. Unfortunately, many employers view it with a skeptical eye, so make sure that it's the best option for you before you use it for your resume.

Combination . The combination, or hybrid, resume offers a balanced mix of those two extremes. It focuses equally on experience and skills, while also employing the reverse chronological technique in its employment section. It can be used by career-changers, those with gaps in their work history, and veteran workers who have a great deal of experience.

Related post : The Best Resume Format to Get Hired

3.     Use a clear structure

When it comes to useful resume tips, we'd be remiss if we failed to note the importance of using a clear and easy-to read structure. To achieve that goal, you need to separate distinct types of information into their own sections, so that employers can quickly identify the information they want to see. Every great resume includes the following sections:

Contact information

Summary paragraph

Skills section

Work experience

You can also include additional optional sections like awards, volunteer work, and other relevant information. Just make sure that those sections contain details that add to your resume narrative by further highlighting your qualifications for the job you're seeking.

Related post: 11 Key Things to Put on Your Resume

4.     Include all relevant contact information

Speaking of contact information, it's important to include multiple ways for employers to reach you for interviews. So, in addition to your full name, you'll want to provide a phone number, email address, and professional social media URL (for example, LinkedIn). You may also benefit from including your professional website, if it contains examples of your work that employers need to see.

5.     Create a compelling resume headline

It's also helpful to add a headline right below your contact information. Many job seekers just list the job title that they're seeking. However, you can use this headline space to create a more compelling message that can help your resume to stand out from the competition. To do this, create a headline that includes that job title along with descriptive language that can capture the employer's attention.

For example, if you're applying for a position as an Office Manager, you can add more flavor to your headline by writing something like:

Dynamic Office Manager with 7 Years of Experience in Productivity Enhancement and Cost Management

6.     Use a resume summary instead of an objective statement

If you're used to including an objective statement on your resume, then this tip is for you: try a resume summary instead. While an objective statement can be a wonderful way to outline your career goals, it's not really something that captures an employer's imagination. After all, employers are more interested in what you can do for them.

A properly constructed resume summary paragraph can be the best way to make that case in the briefest way possible. This short, three- to five-sentence paragraph should help you to highlight your relevant experience, top skills, and quantifiable achievements, creating the job search equivalent of a salesperson's elevator pitch.

Related post : 27 Great Resume Summary Examples to Get Hired

7.     Don't forget to include soft skills

As you craft your core competencies or skills section, make sure that you include more than just the key hard skills listed in the job posting. Those job-specific skills are important and need to appear in your resume, but they typically won't be sufficient to help you differentiate yourself from rival candidates. To do that, you will also need to include relevant soft skills. In fact, those soft skills may be the thing that separates your resume from everyone else's.

Related post : Soft Skills Explained - and the Top 7 for Your Resume

8.     List relevant jobs in your professional experience section

Start with your most recent job and work your way backward. The perfect resume should detail all your relevant professional positions within the past 10 to 15 years. If you recently graduated from college, include your internships and any work experience that took place since you entered college.

For each role, list the following information:

• Company Name.

Job Title.   If your title is specific to your organization, you can include a translation of sorts in parentheses next to your official job title.

Start and End Dates.   Include the month and year for each of these dates.

Achievements.   Brainstorm a list of your accomplishments and major contributions that benefited the organization during your tenure.

9.     Focus on achievements, not responsibilities

You'll notice that we advised you to include achievements for each job listing, rather than your job duties or responsibilities. The reason for that is simple: employers know that every worker has responsibilities, so including that information on its own in your resume won't impress anyone. However, if you can include actual achievements, and quantify them with real numbers, it will help employers to understand the type of value that you can provide if they hire you.

For example, how did you help save the company money, generate revenue, improve customer satisfaction, or increase productivity? Include real numbers, along with dollar and percentage signs to highlight that value.

10.  Include the right educational details

Create a record of all your education, beginning with your most recent degree. List the institution, its location, the name of your degree, your major and minor, your graduation year, and any honors associated with the degree, such as summa or magna cum laude. Do the same for any relevant certifications you've obtained or additional training opportunities or workshops you've attended.

Five tips for writing a resume that gets seen

While the preceding ten resume tips are vital for ensuring that you create the most compelling resume possible, the following five tips can take your resume from average to exceptional if you use them correctly.

11.  Use the right keywords

Let's begin with keywords. Many employers use applicant tracking systems, or ATS, that scan your document to rank candidates. That system will look for specific keywords in your resume. If it finds those keywords, you'll have a better chance of passing the screening and moving on to the next stage of the review process. If the ATS doesn't find those keywords in your resume, your candidacy will be at an end.

So, what are keywords and what should you do with them? You can typically find the right keywords by reviewing the job posting and job description. Pay careful attention to required skills, experience, and educational credentials. The terms used to describe those required qualifications will usually be the same words and phrases that the ATS searches for.

You can create a list of those keywords and simply insert them in your resume - in the summary statement, skills list, and other sections. Always be sure to use the exact terminology you find in the job posting, to ensure that you have the right keywords in your resume.

12.  Make sure that employers can easily skim your resume

It's also vital to think about how employers review resumes. The fact is that few resumes are read from beginning to end, unless they manage to somehow capture an employer's interest in the first few seconds. Most hiring managers only skim through each resume until they find that point of interest. Knowing that, your job is to make sure that their attention is grabbed as early as possible, to entice them to spend more time on their review.

Make sure that your resume can be easily skimmed by keeping it well-organized and tightly focused on your qualifications and value as a potential employee. You should pay attention to the details - like using power verbs to start your bullet points, to ensure that the first few words in each of those achievements draws the reader in and captures their attention.

13.  Skip the fancy design elements

You'll also want to make sure that your resume uses a simple, basic design. Don't try to incorporate tables, text boxes, images, or unusual fonts. Many applicant tracking systems struggle to read those types of design elements, which means that your complex resume design may never be seen by human eyes.

Stick to simple formatting tricks like bullet points, bold or italicized text, and clear section labels.

14.  Save your resume in the right file format

One of the most important resume tips you need to learn involves the document format that you use when you save your resume. Most employers will want to see either a Word document or PDF file, so stick to one or both of those options. Most ATS can read these files. Of course, if a company requests a certain file format, you should always follow those instructions.

15.  Name your file correctly

It's also important to ensure that your file doesn't get lost when you submit it to the company. That's why it's so important to give your resume file a name that can be easily found by any prospective employer. Don't send a file named “My resume,” since that document may be difficult for hiring managers to manage. Instead, provide more details by using a file name like:

“John Doe's Office Manager Resume”

Two tips to help you avoid immediate rejection

Our last two tips are designed to help you avoid being immediately rejected by employers. Both are critically important for ensuring that you avoid making a bad impression on your readers.

16.  Proofread the document

If you want to get your resume rejected as quickly as possible, filling it with misspellings, poor punctuation, inaccurate information, and bad grammar is one of the best ways to do it. Naturally, that's the last thing you want to do when you're hoping to land an interview and job offer. Fortunately, there's a straightforward way to avoid that fate: proofread your resume. In fact, you should proofread it several times to ensure that it's as perfect as possible.

We also recommend that you take that proofreading to the next level by having someone else review it after your edits are done. Find a friend or family member with strong English skills and ask them to read it several times. Make sure that it's someone who won't be shy about critiquing your work!

17.  Update your resume and tailor it to each job

The last of our resume tips is all about freshness and proper targeting for the job you seek. As a rule, you should try to update your resume every few months, even if you're not changing jobs that often. That will allow you to update your achievements and skills in real-time, so that you don't struggle to remember your accomplishments the next time you're looking for a job.

In addition, you need to make sure that you modify your resume every time you submit it to another company, to ensure that it specifically targets the job you're seeking. Effective tailoring will require you to adjust your included keywords to match the job posting, add or omit relevant skills to ensure that you meet the job's requirements, and potentially change your headline and resume summary to align with the company's needs.

Using these resume tips can maximize your chances of job search success!

There's no one-size-fits-all strategy for landing more interviews and job offers. After all, every employer has its own unique needs, and the hiring process can vary from industry to industry. Nevertheless, learning how to employ these resume tips in your resume creation process can help to increase your odds of success and ensure that the right decision-makers see your resume.

Need help with your resume? Our TopResume professional resume writers can assist you! Get your free resume review today!

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10 Best Resume Tips To Help You Get Hired

It can be difficult to create a resume that is professional, accurately sums up your experience and qualifications, and convinces employers that you are the best candidate for the job. Fortunately, this article will cover 10 of the best resume tips to help you create a compelling resume that will in turn help you score interviews and ultimately get hired.

1. Target Your Resume to Each Job Posting

While it’s tempting to save time by creating one generic resume and submitting it with every job application that you send off, this strategy is unlikely to yield desirable results. Most hiring managers can tell immediately that you haven’t taken the time to customize your resume to the specific job opening, and they might immediately reject your application on that basis alone.

Instead, take the time to tailor your resume to each job opening. To do this, read the listing carefully to identify keywords that describe exactly what the employer is looking for in a candidate, and then use all of the keywords that apply to you in your resume.

Tailoring your resume will show the employer that you took the time to read the job description and customize your resume, and that you are taking the job application process seriously.

2. Use a Professional Font and Color Scheme

There are some instances where you may benefit from submitting a creative resume with bright colors and interesting fonts . However, in most cases, you’ll want to stick with simple, professional fonts and muted colors. Make sure your resume text is dark enough and large enough to be easily readable, and, if you choose to use colors, limit them to your header and headings. Avoid neon colors or anything too loud and distracting.

3. Use Active Language

Use active language in your resume summary or objective and your bullet points. Passive language can make your achievements sound less impressive, as if your career is something that has just happened to you rather than something you created for yourself. Using active language and power verbs will enliven your resume and help keep your information succinct.

4. Keep It Short

Your resume should be no longer than one page if you have less than 10 years of professional experience or two pages if you have more experience than that. The only exception would be if you are asked to submit a North American curriculum vitae (CV), which is normally only used in academics. This type of document will outline your entire educational and professional history and can therefore be several pages long.

5. Only Include Relevant Information

In order to keep your resume to one or two pages long, you will likely need to narrow down your experience and qualifications to only the most relevant. Especially if you have a lot of work experience over many years and across multiple industries, you will likely want to focus only on your past positions that are relevant to the position that you are applying for.

It’s also a good idea to list your most relevant information first. Most employers will quickly scan your resume, so you want your most impressive and pertinent details to be what they see first. Of course, when you tailor your resume to each job opening, you will be selecting details that are relevant to the position you are applying for.

6. Use Headings and Bullet Points

Since hiring managers only spend a few seconds scanning each resume they receive, it’s important to keep your resume organized and easy to read quickly. Use headings, subheadings, and bullet points to break up the text on your resume into short, consumable sections. The only section of your resume that should resemble a paragraph is your resume summary or objective.

7. Quantify Important Achievements

When adding bullet points beneath your past positions, avoid simply listing your job duties as the hiring manager likely already knows generally what you did from your job title. Instead, use the bullet points to mention your achievements in past roles in order to show potential employers how you have applied your skills and experience in specific situations.

Whenever possible, use numbers and data to quantify your achievements. For example, instead of writing that you “increased revenue significantly” you might write that you “implemented new sales strategies to increase revenue by 75% in 6 months.”

8. Choose The Best Resume Format

The reverse chronological resume format is the most popular and the most effective in the majority of cases. With this format, you will list each of your past positions and educational details with the current or most recent ones at the top of the list and then work backwards in time from there.

However, if you don’t feel that this format accurately represents your skills and qualifications, you may wish to use one of the other two resume formats: functional or combination .

A functional resume focuses on your skills over your work experience and typically does not include dates with your past job titles. This can be helpful to gloss over gaps in your employment history or simply to highlight your skills as the focal point of your resume.

A combination resume uses elements of both reverse chronological and functional resumes, and is generally only used if you are applying to a very specialized position that has significant skill and experience requirements.

Unless you have a specific reason to use a functional or combination resume format, it’s likely best to use a reverse chronological format. Hiring managers usually prefer this format, and it’s the most likely to pass an applicant tracking system (ATS) scan.

9. Include Professional, Accurate Contact Information

Be sure that you have included your contact information on your resume, or else the employer won’t be able to contact you to offer you an interview. Include your full name, your phone number, a professional email address (not a silly one you made in high school), and your LinkedIn URL. You can also include your address if you wish, or more general location information such as your city and state or the region that you live in. If you have a professional website or an online portfolio you can also include those links with your contact information.

10. Proofread and Edit Your Resume Carefully

Finally, be sure to proofread and edit your resume very carefully before you submit it, checking for spelling and grammar errors as well as inaccuracies. You might find that it’s easier to print out your resume and check over the hard copy. If proofreading isn’t your strong suit, you may want to enlist the help of a trusted friend or family member to check over your resume for you. Nothing is more unprofessional than submitting a resume that has spelling or grammar errors.

Key Takeaways

Creating an effective resume requires a lot of effort and consideration, so be sure to make your resume the best that it can possibly be by following these 10 resume tips. Keep your resume short, powerful, and relevant and highlight your experience, skills, and education to show potential employers that you are the best fit for the position.

Not sure how to turn these tips into a polished resume? Start with Jobseeker ’s professional resume creation tool - you can simply enter in your information, choose from a library of templates , adjust the fonts and color scheme, and download your finished resume instantly!

Get ahead of the competition

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7 Surprising Must-Dos for Your Resume

You’ve known for a while that having a strong and updated resume is an essential part of your professional repertoire. But as the world of business changes, so do the rules. While the basics might stay the same, there are some surprising new tips that no one has probably shared with you.

Until now. Here, we’ve gathered seven seriously helpful links to help get you caught up on all of the latest resume must-haves.

• Accept that your resume is not the most important part of anyone’s day, ever. Figure out what will make someone scan over your document with this helpful advice . (LinkedIn)
• A resume isn’t just about listing your accomplishments—it’s about being an advocate for yourself and why you’d be awesome for the position! Use these four tricks to learn how . (Huffington Post)
• Avoid the “resume black hole” by making your resume SEO friendly . It sounds crazy, but believe us—it’s a thing. (Forbes)
• Use this simple trick to make your skill set look undeniably more attractive than the rest of the pile.
• Find a colleague who is willing to swap resumes . You’ll both figure out how to better describe your job, and who knows? You might even realize there are certain skills you don’t have but absolutely should. (Lifehacker)
• Follow the “less is more” rule. Always. This advice from a successful entrepreneur will explain why too much information will get your resume thrown out. (Both Sides)
• Figuring out new ways to describe what you do and who you are can feel repetitive, but as long as you’re avoiding these resume buzzwords , you’re already on great footing. (U.S. News)

Want more? Our articles will really help you get ahead in the job search.

• 3 Ultimate Resume Makeovers (and What You Can Learn From Them)
• Get Your Resume Recruiter-Ready!
• 43 Resume Tips That Will Help You Get Hired

Photo of person searching resume courtesy of Shutterstock .

43 Resume Tips That Will Help You Get Hired

When you haven’t updated your resume in a while, it can be hard to know where to start. What experiences and accomplishments should you include for the jobs you’ve got your eye on? What new resume rules and trends should you be following? And seriously, one page or two?

Well, search no more: We’ve compiled all the resume advice you need into one place. Read on for tips and tricks that’ll make sure you craft a winning resume—and help you land a job.

Telling Your Story

1. don’t put everything on there.

Your resume should not have every work experience you’ve ever had listed on it. Think of your resume not as a comprehensive list of your career history, but as a marketing document selling you as the perfect person for the job. For each resume you send out, you’ll want to highlight only the accomplishments and skills that are most relevant to the job at hand (even if that means you don’t include all of your experience). Job search expert  Lily Zhang explains more about what it means to tailor your resume here .

2. But Keep a Master List of All Jobs

Since you’ll want to be swapping different information in and out depending on the job you’re applying to, keep a resume master list on your computer where you keep any information you’ve ever included on a resume: old positions, bullet points tailored for different applications, special projects that only sometimes make sense to include. Then, when you’re crafting each resume, it’s just a matter of cutting and pasting relevant information together. Think of this as your  brag file .

3. Put the Best Stuff “Above the Fold”

In marketing speak, “above the fold” refers to what you see on the front half of a folded newspaper (or, in the digital age, before you scroll down on a website), but basically it’s your first impression of a document. In resume speak, it means you should make sure your best experiences and accomplishments are visible on the top third of your resume. This top section is what the hiring manager is going to see first—and what will serve as a hook for someone to keep on reading. So focus on putting your best, most relevant experiences first—and then check out these  five other marketing tricks to get your resume noticed .

4. Ditch the Objective Statement

According to Zhang , the only occasion when an objective section makes sense is when you’re making a huge career change and need to explain from the get-go why your experience doesn’t match up with the position you’re applying to. In every other case? Consider  whether a summary statement would be right for you —or just nix it altogether to save space and focus on making the rest of your resume stellar.

5. Keep it (Reverse) Chronological

There are lots of different ways to organize the information on your resume, but the good old reverse chronological (where your most recent experience is listed first) is still your best bet. Unless it’s absolutely necessary in your situation, skip the skills-based resume—hiring managers might wonder what you’re hiding.

6. Keep it to a Page

The two- (or more!) page resume is  a hotly debated topic , but the bottom line is this—you want the information here to be concise, and making yourself keep it to one page is a good way to force yourself to do this. If you  truly  have enough  relevant  and  important  experience, training, and credentials to showcase on more than one page of your resume, then go for it. But if you can tell the same story in less space? Do. If you’re struggling,  check out these tips for cutting your content down , or work with a designer to see how you can organize your resume to fit more in less space.

7. Consider an Online Supplement

Can’t figure out how to tell your whole story on one page, or want to be able to include some visual examples of your work? Instead of trying to have your resume cover everything, cover the most important details on that document, and then include a link to  your personal website , where you can dive more into what makes you the ideal candidate.

8. Keep it Simple

We’ll talk about getting creative in order to stand out in a minute. But the most basic principle of good resume formatting and design? Keep it simple. Use a basic but modern font, like Helvetica, Arial, or Century Gothic. Make your resume easy on hiring managers’ eyes by using a font size between 10 and 12 and leaving a healthy amount of white space on the page. You can use a different font or typeface for your name, your resume headers, and the companies for which you’ve worked, but keep it simple and keep it consistent. Your main focus here should be on readability for the hiring manager. That being said, you should feel free to…

9. Carefully Stand Out

Really want your resume stand out from the sea of Times New Roman? Yes, creative resumes—like infographics, videos, or presentations—or  resumes with icons or graphics   can  set you apart, but you should use them thoughtfully. If you’re applying through an ATS, keep to the standard formatting without any bells and whistles so the computer can read it effectively. If you’re applying to a more traditional company, don’t get too crazy, but feel free to add some tasteful design elements or a little color to make it pop. No matter what, don’t do it unless you’re willing to put in the time, creativity, and design work to make it awesome.

10. Make Your Contact Info Prominent

You don’t need to include your address on your resume anymore (really!), but you do need to make sure to include a phone number and professional email address (not your work address!) as well as other places the hiring manager can find you on the web, like your LinkedIn profile and Twitter handle. (Implicit in this is that you keep these social media profiles suitable for prospective employers.)

11. Design for Skimmability

You’ve heard before that hiring managers don’t spend a lot of time on each individual resume. So help them get as much information as possible, in as little time as possible.  These 12 small formatting changes  will make a huge difference.

12. Get Help From a Professional

Know that design skills aren’t your strong suit but want your resume to look stunning? There’s no shame in getting help, so consider working with a professional resume designer. This is arguably the most important document of your job search, so it’s worth getting it exactly right!

Work Experience

13. keep it recent, keep it relevant.

As a rule, you should only show the most recent 10-15 years of your career history and only include the experience relevant to the positions to which you are applying. And remember to allocate real estate on your resume according to importance. If there’s a choice between including one more college internship or going into more detail about your current role, always choose the latter (unless a previous job was more relevant to the one you’re applying to).

14. No Relevant Experience? No Worries!

Don’t panic if you don’t have any experience that fits the bill. Instead,  Zhang explains , focus your resume on your relevant and transferrable skills along with any related side or academic projects, and then make sure to pair it with a strong cover letter telling the narrative of why you’re ideal for the job.

15. Curate Your Bullet Points

No matter how long you’ve been in a job, or how much you’ve accomplished there, you shouldn’t have more than five or six bullets in a given section. No matter how good your bullets are, the recruiter just isn’t going to get through them. Check out  these tips for writing impressive bullet points .

16. Bring it Down a Level

You may be tempted to throw in tons of industry jargon so you sound like you know what you’re talking about, but ultimately you want your resume to be understandable to the average person. Remember that the first person who sees your resume might be a recruiter, an assistant, or even a high-level executive—and you want to be sure that it is readable, relevant, and interesting to all of them.

17. Give ’Em the Numbers

Use as many facts, figures, and numbers as you can in your bullet points. How many people were impacted by your work? By what percentage did you exceed your goals? By quantifying your accomplishments, you really allow the hiring manager to picture the level of work or responsibility you needed to achieve them. Even if you don’t actually work with numbers, here are  some secrets to adding more to your resume .

18. Take it One Step Further

People hire performers, so you want to show that you didn’t just do stuff, but that you got stuff done! As you look at your bullet points, think about how you can take each statement one step further and add in what the benefit was to your boss or your company. By doing this, you clearly communicate not only what you’re capable of, but also the direct benefit the employer will receive by hiring you. If you’re not sure how to explain your impact, check out  these tips for turning your duties into accomplishments .

19. Show—Don’t Tell—Your Soft Skills

Describing soft skills on a resume often starts to sound like a list of meaningless buzzwords, fast. But being a “strong leader” or an “effective communicator” are important characteristics you want to get across. Think about how you can demonstrate these attributes in your bullet points without actually saying them.  Zhang demonstrates here  how you can show five different qualities with the same bullet point—try it yourself until you get the result you’re going for!

20. Don’t Neglect Non-Traditional Work

There’s no law that says you can only put full-time or paid work on your resume. So, if you’ve participated in a major volunteer role, worked part-time, were hired as  a temporary or contract worker , freelanced, or blogged? Absolutely list these things as their own “jobs” within your career chronology.

21. Mix Up Your Word Use

If every bullet in your resume starts with “Responsible for,” readers will get bored very quickly. Use  our handy list of better verbs to mix it up !

22. Use Keywords

Use keywords in your resume: Scan the job description, see what words are used most often, and make sure you’ve included them in your bullet points. Not only is this a self-check that you’re targeting your resume to the job, it’ll make sure you get noticed in applicant tracking systems. Stuck on which words to include?  Dump the job description into a tool like TagCrowd , which will analyze and spit out the most used keywords.

23. Avoid Empty Words

What words shouldn’t you include? Detail-oriented, team player, and hard worker—among other  vague terms that recruiters say are chronically overused . We bet there’s a better way to describe how awesome you are.

24. Experience First, Education Second

Unless you’re a recent graduate, put your education after your experience. Chances are, your last couple of jobs are more important and relevant to you getting the job than where you went to college.

25. Also Keep it Reverse Chronological

Usually, you should lay down your educational background by listing the most recent or advanced degree first, working in reverse chronological order. But if older coursework is more specific to the job, list that first to grab the reviewer’s attention.

26. But Skip the Dates

Don’t list your graduation dates. The reviewer cares more about whether or not you have the degree than when you earned it.

27. Highlight Honors, Not GPA

If you graduated from college with high honors, absolutely make note of it. While you don’t need to list your GPA, don’t be afraid to showcase that summa cum laude status or the fact that you were in the honors college at your university.

28. Include Continuing or Online Education

Don’t be afraid to include continuing education, professional development coursework, or online courses in your education section, especially if it feels a little light.  Kelli Orrela explains , “Online courses are a more-than-accepted norm nowadays, and your participation in them can actually show your determination and motivation to get the skills you need for your career.”

Skills, Awards, and Interests

29. list out your skills.

Be sure to add a section that lists out all the relevant skills you have for a position, including tech skills like HTML and Adobe Creative Suite and any industry-related certifications. Just make sure to skip including skills that everyone is expected to have, like using email or Microsoft Word. Doing so will actually make you seem  less  technologically savvy.

30. Divvy Them Up

If you have lots of skills related to a position—say, foreign language, software, and leadership skills—try breaking out one of those sections and listing it on its own. Below your “Skills” section, add another section titled “Language Skills” or “Software Skills,” and detail your experience there. Again—we’re going for skimmability here, folks!

31. Show Some Personality

Feel free to include an “Interests” section on your resume, but only add those that are relevant to the job. Are you a guitar player with your eye on a music company? Definitely include it. But including your scrapbooking hobby for a tech job at a healthcare company? Don’t even think about it.

32. Beware of Interests That Could Be Controversial

Maybe you help raise money for your church on the reg. Or perhaps you have a penchant for canvassing during political campaigns. Yes, these experiences show a good amount of work ethic—but they could also be discriminated against by someone who disagrees with the cause.  Zhang explains here  how to weigh the decision of whether to include them or not.

33. Strut Your Stuff

Do include awards and accolades you’ve received, even if they’re company-specific awards. Just state what you earned them for, e.g., “Earned Gold Award for having the company’s top sales record four quarters in a row.” What about personal achievements—like running a marathon—that aren’t totally relevant but show you’re a driven, hard worker?  Zhang shares  the proper ways to include them.

Gaps and Other Sticky Resume Situations

34. kill the short-term jobs.

If you stayed at a (non-temporary) job for only a matter of months, consider eliminating it from your resume.  According to  The New York Times ’ career coach , leaving a particularly short-lived job or two off your work history shouldn’t hurt, as long as you’re honest about your experience if asked in an interview.

35. Deal with the Gaps

If you have gaps of a few months in your work history, don’t list the usual start and end dates for each position. Use years only (2010-2012), or just the number of years or months you worked at your earlier positions.

36. Explain Serial Job Hopping

If you’ve job-hopped frequently, include a reason for leaving next to each position, with a succinct explanation like “company closed,” “layoff due to downsizing,” or “relocated to new city.” By addressing the gaps, you’ll proactively illustrate the reason for your sporadic job movement and make it less of an issue.

37. Explain a Long Break in Jobs

Re-entering the workforce after a long hiatus? This is the perfect opportunity for a summary statement at the top, outlining your best skills and accomplishments. Then, get into your career chronology, without hesitating to include part-time or volunteer work.  See more tips from Jenny Foss  for killing it on your comeback resume.

38. Don’t Try to Get Cute

Don’t try to creatively fill in gaps on your resume. For example, if you took time out of the workforce to raise kids, don’t list your parenting experience on your resume, à la “adeptly managed the growing pile of laundry” (we’ve seen it). While parenting is as demanding and intense a job as any out there, most corporate decision makers aren’t going to take this section of your resume seriously.

Finishing Touches

39. ditch “references available upon request”.

If a hiring manager is interested in you, he or she will ask you for references—and will assume that you have them. There’s no need to address the obvious (and doing so might even make you look a little presumptuous!).

40. Proofread, Proofread, Proofread

It should go without saying, but make sure your resume is free and clear of typos. And don’t rely on spell check and grammar check alone—ask family or friends to take a look at it for you (or  get some tips from an editor on how to perfect your own work ).

41. Save it as a PDF

If emailing your resume, make sure to always send a PDF rather than a .doc. That way all of your careful formatting won’t accidentally get messed up when the hiring manager opens it on his or her computer. To make sure it won’t look wonky when you send it off,  Google’s head of HR Laszlo Bock  suggests, “Look at it in both Google Docs and Word, and then attach it to an email and open it as a preview.”

42. Name Your File Smartly

Ready to save your resume and send it off? Save it as “Jane Smith Resume” instead of “Resume.” It’s one less step the hiring manager has to take.

43. Constantly Refresh It

Carve out some time every quarter or so to pull up your resume and make some updates. Have you taken on new responsibilities? Learned new skills? Add them in. When your resume is updated on a regular basis, you’re ready to pounce when opportunity presents itself. And, even if you’re not job searching,  there are plenty of good reasons  to keep this document in tip-top shape.

CVs & Résumés

• Nov 18, 2019
• 11 min read

20 Best Résumé Writing Tips that Will Get You an Interview

Read our tips and tricks on writing a standout résumé and landing an interview for the job of your dreams.

Melina Theodorou

Career and Culture Writer

Today’s job market is fiercely competitive.

With hiring managers often having to sift through numerous résumés for a single position, only the best of the best make it to the next stage of the hiring process. Indeed, if you want to land a good job, you need to be able to compete against a fleet of other equally qualified candidates.

An impressive résumé , then, is what you need to stand out from the crowd.

With only a few seconds to grab an employer’s attention, there’s a lot to consider when crafting your résumé. Lucky for you, we’ve compiled the best résumé writing tips that will help you get an interview for your dream job!

You can also feast your eyes on the most essential résumé tips in our video version:

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1. Choose the Right Format

A chronological résumé  helps employers assess your most recent work first, bringing immediate attention to your current experience. While this is a popular format, however, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the right one for you. In fact, there’s an array of résumé formats to choose from, each one with its own merits.

For example, if you have some employment gaps, then a skills-based résumé  could be a better option, as it brings attention to your abilities rather than your experience. Likewise, a combination résumé  is a great way to emphasise both your experience and your relevant skills.

2. Model Your Résumé to the Job You Want

Hiring managers aren’t looking for generic content but rather specialised skills and industry-related expertise.

To give recruiters what they’re looking for, your CV or résumé should be tailor-made for the position you’re applying for. That means that you’ll need to do extensive research on the role and the company itself. From there on, incorporate your most relevant experience and knowledge within your résumé.

On another note, be sure to include targeted keywords that will help your résumé stand out. This is particularly important if you’re applying to a bigger company, as it will help your résumé pass through the applicant tracking system (or ATS, for short). Resume.io , meanwhile, warns against adding too many keywords when writing your résumé, as it makes it unreadable to people.

3. Add a Punchy Career Summary

To grab the hiring manager’s attention, your career summary needs to be short and snappy. It should be no longer than two or three sentences, and you should use the space to highlight your professional experience, job-specific skills , relevant achievements and career objectives . Avoid redundancies and select points that can demonstrate you’re the ideal candidate for the job.

Start by listing your strongest character traits in a few words, then mention your current title, responsibilities and years of experience, and then move on to noteworthy career achievements. Then, briefly state your objectives for working at the company you’re applying for.

4. Detail Your Previous Roles

Employers are looking for candidates with illustrated professional experience. By doing so, you can further demonstrate your skills and experience to hiring managers and how they match their needs.

Of course, that doesn’t mean you should list every single responsibility and job you’ve held during your career. Simply list the skills that are essential for the role you’re applying for and tailor the content so that you can demonstrate your experience. Remember to accompany these with some metrics and statistics to make your points more impactful (more on that later).

5. Highlight Your Achievements

Identifying your achievements is an excellent way to boost your résumé and differentiate yourself from other candidates with similar skillsets. So, while you should detail your most important duties and responsibilities in previous positions, you need to combine these with your professional accomplishments.

Don’t forget to accompany these with some impressive facts and figures, too. This will surely show the value you can bring to the company and give you a competitive advantage over other candidates.

6. Quantify Your Experience

Numbers, metrics and figures are an excellent way to demonstrate your skills to employers. By quantifying information, you can highlight your professional achievements and show how your contributions have helped your current company achieve its goals.

When listing your duties and achievements, make sure to use any quantifiable evidence that can justify the work you’ve done. For example, you could include points like ‘Managed a team of 20 people’, ‘Increased sales by 80%’ or ‘Oversaw a budget of $12 million’.

7. Use Action Words

The best way to distinguish your accomplishments when detailing your work experience is to use compelling action verbs .

Words like ‘manage’, ‘led’ and ‘responsible for’ have been used rather excessively over the years, so try to avoid them as much as possible. Instead, opt for alternative action verbs that will make your achievements more personable, like ‘coordinated’, ‘launched’, ‘improved’, ‘supervised’ and ‘identified’.

8. Skip Cliché Terms

The content of your résumé should be unique in every possible way. To achieve this, you need to keep the content clear of overly generic terms such as ‘hard worker’ or ‘team player’.

The objective here is to make yourself as memorable as possible to the recruiter, but with every applicant vouching to their ‘ attention to detail ’ and ‘ great communication skills ’, this often becomes repetitive and devoid of meaning.

The best way for you to show off professional attributes is to provide solid examples and hard facts. Break away from cliché content and back up any claims you make with evidence.

9. Pay Attention to Formatting

Making your CV or résumé easy to navigate through helps recruiters absorb important information easily.

Large paragraphs and blocks of text are the first things you should avoid. Instead, break up information in easily digestible and concise parts.

Place the most important information within the first two-thirds of the first page and make good use of any available white space. That said, while your résumé shouldn’t be crammed with text, it should also not contain too many blank spots.

Also, strive for neat page transitions where your paragraphs aren’t halved across two pages.

10. Consider Using a Template

Your résumé’s presentation could have a major impact on your job search success . Indeed, the best way to grab a hiring manager’s attention is with a visually pleasing template that will draw them in and encourage them to read its content.

It’s crucial that you pick the right layout and design for the position you’re applying for. What is an acceptable template will depend on the particular industry, but the good news is that there are countless options to choose from.

Pro tip: make sure that your chosen template is optimised for ATS software!

11. Economise Your Space

There’s a lot that needs to be covered within just two A4 pages , and if you’re a seasoned professional, then the chances are that you’ll have a lot of worthwhile experiences to go through.

To avoid overcrowding your résumé with information, you can start by omitting the ‘résumé’, 'CV' or ‘Curriculum Vitae’ heading. Instead, put more emphasis on your name and professional title, which should be both placed at the top of the first page.

If you have an extensive list of experience, you should also avoid going into too much detail about older roles you’ve held. Instead, focus on your most recent experience and achievements (typically up to 15 years).

To top that off, be sure to use bullet points and to avoid long descriptive sentences.

12. Be Consistent

If you choose to bold or italicise your title or include months or just years in your dates of employment, make sure you do so throughout the entire résumé. Also, it’s a good idea to only pick a single font style that is both readable and professional-looking, such as Arial, Helvetica or Verdana.

Other things to look out for include the size (between and 10 and 12 points) and colour of your text, as well as the tone and tense. Writing in the third person and the past tense is recommended.

13. Mind the Employment Gaps

Employment gaps often raise red flags for recruiters, which is why you need to be transparent about them. As a principle, you should provide the reasons behind extended unemployment periods.

Word to the wise: don’t lie about the duration you worked at your last job, as the hiring manager can quickly corroborate your employment dates with a simple call to your previous employer.

Even if your résumé contains employment gaps , you can use it to your advantage and highlight any volunteer work you did or any other skills you gained during your time off.

14. Use a Professional Email Address

Your contact details should be appropriate and up to date. More specifically, your email address should comprise of your name and surname or at least your initials and be devoid of arbitrary words.

A strange email address like ‘ [email protected] ’ is unlikely to make a good impression on the hiring manager, and it will most probably reflect badly on your sense of professionalism. Instead, create a new email address designated for your applications and business-related emails, and include that within your résumé.

15. Include Useful Links

Nowadays, most résumés are submitted electronically. One of the biggest advantages of this is that you can make your document all the more informative by including links to your professional social media profiles , online portfolio or professional blog. This is a great opportunity to wow recruiters and give them a real taste of your expertise in your field.

So, before you submit your résumé, be sure to add links to any relevant platforms that can show off your work. These should be placed in the header of the first page along with your contact information.

16. Don’t Get Too Personal

You need to be mindful about the personal details that you include on your résumé. Information like your age, gender, home address and nationality should generally be avoided, as this not only can affect an employer’s decision but also take up unnecessary space.

On another note, while in some countries you are required to include a photo of yourself in your résumé , it’s generally discouraged.

You should also cut out any personal pronouns like ‘I’, ‘me’ and ‘my’ to avoid being repetitive and wasting valuable space on your résumé.

17. Include Personal Interests

Including some of your hobbies and interests adds a dash of your personality to your résumé.

That said, do avoid generalities like travelling, reading and playing sports. Think of this as another opportunity to be personable and show off any skills that might be relevant to the job.

For example, list a specific sport that requires team effort or some other activity that highlights your interest in your industry. If you have volunteer experience , meanwhile, you should also include this either within your interests list or as a separate section altogether.

18. Give it the Right File Name

Before sending off your résumé electronically, make sure that you’ve given the document a professional file name.

With hundreds of résumés competing for hiring managers’ attention, sending yours off under a generic name like ‘Résumé.doc’ or ‘MyRésuméFirstdraft.doc’ just won’t make the cut.

Instead, give it a personalised touch and go for a simple format like ‘John-Smith-Résumé.doc’. This will give your résumé a professional look, differentiate it from the rest and help recruiters remember your application a little bit better.

19. Proofread It (and Proofread it Again)

One of the biggest mistakes you can make with your résumé is sending it off without taking the time to proofread it.

It’s quite easy to miss small errors when you’ve been looking at it for hours on end, so the best thing you can do is get a fresh pair of eyes and make the most out of online tools like Grammarly or Hemingway App.

Remember: it takes just one small grammar mistake to make a recruiter doubt your ‘atension to detail’, and this can be detrimental to your application’s success.

20. Get a Professional’s Help

If you’re too stressed about writing your very first résumé  or updating your existing one , you simply don’t have the time, or you just don’t know where to start, then turning to a professional résumé writer  (like CareerAddict's very own résumé service ) for some much-needed help might be a good idea!

There’s a lot you need to consider when putting together your CV or résumé. From formats to templates and what sections to include, there’s plenty of ground that needs to be covered in such a short space.

While there’s no one-size-fits-all approach you can take, by following these tips, you’ll be able to craft a job-winning résumé in next to no time.

Do you have anything you’d like to add? Join the conversation down below and let us know!

This article is an updated version of an earlier article originally published on 22 August 2017.

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18 Résumé Writing Tips to Help You Stand Out

By  Allison Pohle

Updated May 11, 2021 2:15 pm ET

• A résumé isn’t just a list of every job you’ve ever had. It should demonstrate your accomplishments.
• Mirror language used in the job posting so your résumé isn’t discarded by an applicant tracking system.
• Use a clean and simple format. 

Companies increasingly  rely on software  to sort through applicants, which is why it is essential to tailor your résumé to ensure it makes the cut. Applicant tracking systems sort, scan and rank applicants by looking for keywords in applications. Although these programs can save time and money for employers, about 60% said such tools cause them to miss some qualified candidates, according to a 2016 survey of 1,200 job seekers and managers by CareerArc, a human-resources technology company, and Future Workplace, a research firm. Here’s how to make your résumé stand out to robots and humans alike. 

1. Highlight your achievements in your résumé. 

A common mistake job seekers make is believing a résumé is a recap of your career, when in reality, it should convey what you have accomplished, says Christy Noel, a career expert and author of “Your Personal Career Coach.” 

“I always say, spend less of your real estate describing your job, and more time describing your results,” says Ms. Noel.  

2. Customize your résumé.

Read over the job posting, and think about the work experience you have had that is most directly relevant to the position you are pursuing. You can leave out some past jobs and internships if the experience you had wasn’t related. Whatever you do: Don’t submit a generic résumé to dozens of postings. “Even if you have the best experience, if your résumé isn’t speaking directly to the position in which you are applying, there is a strong chance you’ll never even get an interview,” says Demisha Jennings, a certified professional résumé writer and founder and owner of She Assists LLC.  

The same applies to your cover letter. It is your chance to provide more detail on how your experience will help you succeed in the job.  Read our cover letter guide  for how to write one that makes you stand out.

3. Decide how to format your résumé.

Most of the time, a chronological résumé will work well for communicating your past experience. But, in some cases, a functional or hybrid résumé might be more appropriate.  Read more about résumé formats here.

4. Make your contact information easy to find.

Include your name, phone number, email address, city and state. It may also be appropriate to include the URL to your LinkedIn profile. You want it to be easy for hiring managers to reach out.

In addition to making it easy to connect with you, it is important to your job search that you grow your network.  Read our networking guide  for tips on how to do so.

5. Consider adding a summary. 

Many résumé templates leave space for an objective statement, outlining career goals, but that approach is outdated, says Ms. Jennings. Instead, consider a carefully worded summary. The summary is often the first place a hiring manager will look, and gives you an opportunity to introduce your skills high up on the page. You can also work in relevant keywords from the job description. “Recruiters are looking for what you can bring to the table and what you’ve done, rather than you saying, ‘I’m seeking a position,’” Ms. Jennings says. 

6. Great résumés should stand out to skim readers.

Most recruiters spend just a few seconds skimming through a résumé—with an average in one study of  7.4 seconds.  

To have the best chance of making an impression, ensure your job titles, company names and dates of employment are easy to read. The sections of your résumé should be adequately spaced, too, says Dana Leavy-Detrick, founder and director of Brooklyn Resume Studio. 

For additional ways to make a good impression on recruiters and headhunters, read  our guide on how to work with headhunters .

7. Make your résumé robot-friendly. 

Structure your résumé to meet the requirements of an applicant tracking system to give yourself the best chance of having it reach an actual human. Ms. Leavy-Detrick suggests the following:

• Optimize keywords.  Use the same words and language that are in the job description. For example, three different companies might describe the same role as “programmer,” “developer” or “software engineer.” 
• Use a straightforward format.  Avoid tables and text-based graphics, which might not get picked up by a scan of the résumé. Sans-serif fonts such as Arial or Helvetica are also best to ensure readability.
• Think about order.  When formatting each line item of work experience, list the company name first, followed by the job location (city, state), your job title, and your start and end dates. Some résumés can get lost if the dates are listed before the job title. 

8. Prioritize relevant keywords. 

Tailoring your skills to include language from the job posting is an important way to let both the applicant tracking system and, eventually, a hiring manager, see how your prior qualifications tie into the job requirements. But just because you have a résumé full of keywords doesn’t mean you’ll automatically get an interview. “The ATS isn’t there to help the job seeker, it is there to help the employer review your skills against their most important qualifications,” says Ashley Watkins, a career coach and résumé writer with Write Step Résumés LLC. 

9. Craft compelling and concise bullet points.

The goal of a résumé is to list your accomplishments, rather than every duty you performed in the role. Résumé-writing experts recommend including no more than five bullet points per prior job listed. 

• Don’t focus on tasks.  Many job seekers describe what they did every day, such as answering phones or creating marketing materials, Ms. Watkins says. “Simply copying and pasting the job description doesn’t account for the things you did great, that you did above and beyond your peers,” she says.
• Instead, explain what those tasks achieved.  Emphasize your results. Ms. Watkins suggests asking yourself “Did I save [the employer] money? Did I save time? Did I improve a process? Did I build a relationship?” These will help you format your bullet points.
• Use metrics.  Say what you achieved, then contextualize it—with figures if possible. You might not be able to put a monetary value on every accomplishment, but you can frame it by sharing details like the time it took or how many people were involved. “If you raised sales 50% in two months, that means a whole lot more than ‘I’m in charge of sales,’” Ms. Watkins says. 
• Don’t omit accomplishments that aren’t quantifiable.  Not every achievement will have metrics to show success. If there are figures, you might not always have access to them. But that shouldn’t stop you from including them, says Ms. Leavy-Detrick. Perhaps you had a positive impact on the culture of an organization, or improved a struggling relationship with a client. These efforts could help to demonstrate your  soft skills.

10. Focus on transferable skills if you lack experience.

If you are applying for a job in a new field or you are an entry-level applicant and don’t have much direct experience, don’t worry. Highlight transferable skills you have developed in the past that will serve you well in the position, says Ms. Leavy-Detrick. For example, you could play up leadership skills you developed participating in an extracurricular activity or time-management skills you learned in a prior job.

11. Go beyond your work history, and include all relevant experience.

If you are new to the workforce, or are job-hunting after being laid off, you could also include related experience that was outside of a traditional full-time job, says Ms. Watkins. For example, you can highlight volunteer work, consulting projects or educational training, all as part of making the case for your unique value, she says.

12. Don’t worry too much about gaps in your résumé.

The Covid-19 pandemic economy resulted in many people being laid off or furloughed. Ms. Watkins says the 2020 job market reminds her of 2008, when she worked as a recruiter. The expectation at that time, she says, was that candidates would have  gaps  on their résumés or list more short-term positions. While it isn’t necessary to directly address the gaps in your résumé, you should be  prepared to talk about them in an interview . “The focus should not be centered on the fact that you were furloughed or laid off, it should be focused on you and your skills and what you do that impacts the company’s bottom line in a positive way,” Ms. Watkins says.

While it is common to list the months and years you started and ended positions in the job history section, you could just use years. This will draw less attention to a six- or eight-month gap, says Ms. Leavy-Detrick. 

13. Highlight relevant skills.

It is common to  add a skills section to your résumé , outlining expertise relevant to the position. You can include languages you speak, technical skills or courses you have done. If you lack experience, you can also complete some trainings, which you can find on LinkedIn and elsewhere, related to the job you are applying for and add the courses in this section, says Ms. Jennings.

14. Prioritize work experience over education.

The professional experience you have had is often more relevant to the position than your education history, which is why the work experience should be listed first. In the “Education” section, you should list where you attended college, if applicable, or the highest level of education you have attained. If you graduated with honors, you can flag that, but it isn’t necessary to list your GPA.

15. If you are early on in your career, a key résumé tip is to limit it to one page. 

If you are early on in your career, you should limit your résumé to one page. It is OK to start spilling onto a second page after you have eight to 10 years of experience, says Ms. Leavy-Detrick. 

16. Add some color for a stylish résumé that sets you apart. 

Your résumé should look clean and professional and you should keep applicant tracking systems in mind when formatting the document. But, if it is appropriate, you can add subtle accents of color in the section headings or in bars that separate sections as a way to differentiate your résumé. Ms. Leavy-Detrick doesn’t overstress the need for good design with her clients. “But it can definitely help,” she says. “When I say design, I don’t mean crazy graphic design. I mean having a polished application,” she says. “Think of it the same way you would coming dressed to an interview, it is part of your presentation, and so many people overlook this on the résumé.”

It may be appropriate to incorporate a more creative and graphic-based layout depending on the field in which you work and where you are applying. If you are applying for a position in a creative field, and you are emailing your résumé directly to a hiring manager, then it can be appropriate to use more designs, says Ms. Jennings. But if you are applying to a large company that uses an applicant tracking system or job portal, she says it is best to avoid using graphics unless you are working with a résumé writer who can help you get your resume through the system.

17. Proofread and double-check the formatting.

You may be eager to send your résumé or submit your application, but you should take the time to first check for typos and grammatical errors. You could also have a friend or family member look over it. When you are checking for errors, be sure to double-check the formatting. Sometimes the spacing can get thrown off when you save the file, so check how it looks as a saved document and, if you can, save it as a PDF before sending. 

18. Make sure the saved file name includes your name. 

Make less work for the hiring manager by including your full name in the file name of the résumé document.

What to read next

• How to Prepare for a Job Interview
• What Questions to Ask During a Job Interview
• Common Job Interview Questions and How to Answer Them
• How to Dress for a Job Interview
• How to Write a Thank-You Email After a Job Interview  
• How to Negotiate and Counter a Job Offer
• How to Negotiate Salary for a New Job: The Do’s and Don’ts
• Severance Pay: What It Is and Why You Should Negotiate a Package Before Accepting a Job

Corrections & Amplifications Ashley Watkins is a résumé writer with Write Step Résumés LLC. An earlier version of this article incorrectly said Write Steps LLC. (Corrected on Nov. 20)

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Appeared in the November 23, 2020, print edition as '11 Résumé Tips to Help You Get Noticed