3 Ways to Make Your Resume Stronger

There are three things that every resume should aim to do, regardless of your level of experience, or which industry or position is at hand. These are tools which will help you maximize the way employers and recruiters scan through your document, ensuring you can get as much information across in as short of an amount of time as possible. 

This quick video will walk you through each of these tips! 

If you're ready for more information, here are two related blog posts with more resume tips, or reach out for a free consultation to ask questions specific to your situation:

• Simple Resume Writing Tips

• My Favorite Resume Loophole

When you're writing your resume, there are three things you want to do, regardless of what industry or position you're applying to. Those three things are to start with strong action verbs, be as results-oriented as possible, and quantify when possible. In this video, I'll go into more detail about what I mean by each of those things. 

The first tip is to start with strong action verbs. I highly recommend using bullets on a resume instead of using the paragraph format when describing experience due to employers only may have time to give your resume a very quick scan. Using a paragraph format is really, really dense to read. 

When using bullet points, start each experience listed with one strong action verb. Phrases you want to avoid using are, responsible for or assisted because they lead the employer to assume you're about to give a laundry list of unimportant information, or that you didn't contribute much assistance at all. If you used the word “assisted” because you weren’t the only one working on the project, you can add you were doing the task with a team or in collaboration with a colleague. 

Starting with a strong action verb will give the employer the opportunity to get valuable information in a short amount of time. If you have trouble thinking of action verbs, a lot of career service offices have resume guides, with a whole laundry list of strong verbs to use. When in doubt, don’t forget to utilize a thesaurus.

The second thing every resume should have is the tendency to be result-oriented. If you scan through your resume as it is now, I guarantee you have what's called a “so what” bullet. A “so what” bullet is where you're describing something you did, but the reader is left wondering,
“so what” was the point of that? What was the intention or goal? What impact did that have on the place of employment? 

Be sure to add a lot more value by talking about what the purpose or the intention of your activity was, and what it was used for. Another important thing to note here is that some people have bullets like this because they left an employer or a job without seeing the project through. And that's okay! You can still add value by talking about what the intended goal or result was, and what your actions were used to contribute to. I invite you to look through your resume and look line by line and see if there's any room to add a bit more results-oriented context to your experiences. 

The third thing every resume should do is quantify when possible. Numbers really stand out in a resume, and they can also show more of a description or more gravity to what you're doing. For example, if you delivered presentations to classes talking about X, Y and Z, that's great to list, but it has a lot more impact if you say something like “I delivered presentations to up to 500 attendees discussing X, Y, and Z. Understand it's not always possible to add numbers, but if you've been in a sales role and you exceeded goals, brought in a certain amount of revenue, or worked on deals, those are all places where you can add some of these numerical pieces of data to showcase to an employer the scope of your work. 

And that's it! Those are the three biggest things you should do on every resume, regardless of what industry field or type of role you're applying to. If you have other questions about resumes, feel free to leave me a note in the comments below. And if any of your friends are working on their resumes or job searches, feel free to share this video with them as well.

My Favorite Resume Loophole

Need more resume support? Click here for my top tips, or reach out for a free consultation!

Writing a resume can be challenging. My clients often come to me with these three common concerns:

• Is it too long? If I delete something that’s less relevant to save space, will employers think there’s a gap?

• I do have an employment gap. How do I make it less noticeable?

• I’m changing roles/fields and something from years ago is now more relevant than my most recent work experience. How do I get that to stand out more?

There is, amazingly, ONE solution for all three of these. The answer, and my favorite resume loophole, is this:

Divide your experience into multiple sections, so you can work around the rule that everything has to be in reverse chronological order.

For example, imagine you’re applying for a research role and want to highlight the job you held two positions prior to your current role. You could have “Research Experience” and “Additional Experience” as your two sections, include the older role in “Research Experience” and your current role in “Additional Experience” (research is just one example, but you can put whatever field/industry you’re targeting in the title).

Side note: the word “additional” reads better than “other” as the latter implies the experience is not really relevant.  

This brings the more related experience up the page on the resume, helping it be seen by employers during their first quick glance. It also changes around the order of the dates, so the employer would have to spend more time looking at each date to check for a gap.

Try this simple yet effective trick and you’ll notice how much more creative you can be on your resume!

Was this helpful? Here are more ways working with a career coach can help you land work you love.

Simple Resume Writing Tips

Has it been a while since you last updated your resume? Or perhaps you want a quick "how-to" on approaching this thing that has potentially been on your to-do list for ages? Below is my attempt to succinctly share how to navigate this process. 

Overall Strategy/Approach 

1. Always, always, keep it updated

This one is hard to stick to, but so worth it if you do. If you haven’t and want to start now, go back and take a look at past performance reviews, your job description, or even your work calendar for the last few months (or years!) to jog your memory of not only what you do, but also what you’ve accomplished.

Similar to what I discuss in my cover letter guide (grab it at the bottom of the page!), some people get paralyzed by perfection. Start where you are instead of feeling like you need to have the most beautiful phrasing in the world. You can edit and refine later but begin by pretending you’re telling a friend what it is you do on a day to day basis, season to season. This simple exercise has helped hundreds of my clients move from a blank page to a full resume.

2. Don’t have someone else do the entire thing for you

I’m an advocate for asking for guidance on your resume, but having someone else put it all together for you is completely different. The ability to use your own voice to describe your experience is such a critical skill to have in your life. You know your story best, and employers will want to hear the version of the story they read in your application materials. Make it your own.

I’ve worked with clients who have to go back to the person they paid to write their resume every time they want to change it. For everything... even a tiny tweak in formatting or the use of one new word. You want to be able to make tailored versions of your resume for every application you have, and having to go to someone for this every time will slow things down (and out of pocket costs will go up!).

Getting tactical 

1. Looks matter      

There’s debate about how long employers spend actually reading your resume. It’s safe to assume if they’re feeling generous, the maximum amount of time you’ll get on a first read is 30 seconds. So, while it may sound shallow, the aesthetics of your resume really matter. If you give them any reason not to want to read it (it’s too busy, it’s too long, and so on) they just won’t. Along the same lines, think about the way we read (left to right, top to bottom) and use the prime real estate on your resume accordingly!

2. Top 3 rules to follow no matter what industry you're applying to

I could write 100 pages on resumes and still not cover everything. This is how I summarize the most important criteria for content to everyone, no matter their industry:

• Be results-oriented: say what you did AND why it matters

• Quantify when possible: Taught 450 elementary students vs. Taught students makes a big difference

• Use bullets and start them with strong and varied action verbs: paragraph format takes too long for employers to read + the thesaurus in MS Word is a goldmine

3. General Housekeeping:

• Your margins should NEVER be smaller than .5 on all sides (at the smallest!)

• Always send your resume as a PDF when possible

• Be mindful of the file name for your resume – If you accidentally apply to Starbucks with “My Dunkin Donuts Resume” it’s going in the trash. “Resume Version 284” isn’t the best look either.

• Use spellcheck, but have someone else (like me or a friend) take a look at it – asses and assess are both words, but you’re a lot more likely to use one of those on a resume over another!

I hope this helps you get started on updating your resume, which is often the hardest part. Next up is deciding what to include in a cover letter.

If you have questions or need help, as always I'm available for a free 30 minute consultation, and resume writing is one of my favorite things to help clients through (nerdy, but true).  If you’d like to take an even bigger picture look at what it’s like to work with a career coach, the linked post goes into a lot of depth on that as well. Good luck!

The Top 8 Mistakes Job Seekers Make and How to Recover from Them

The job-search process can often leave candidates feeling frustrated and powerless. Not being selected or never hearing back from employers after submitting applications can only exacerbate these feelings.

Discovering that you’ve been doing something “wrong” can actually be good news.

It means there’s room to improve the process and yield different results. If you’re doing everything perfectly and still not making any headway in your search, it would be much more frustrating.

These are the eight common mistakes I've seen job seekers make over the last 10 years of being a career coach. If any of these sound like you, modify your approach and you’ll notice the difference!

1) You spend all of your time applying to jobs posted online or waiting for things to open.

While it’s a necessary step in the process, many jobs that are posted are actually either already filled (HR has a legal obligation to post) or nearly filled (the employer already has someone in mind). There are times when you might apply to something randomly and be hired, but up to 85% of jobs are offered to people with a pre-existing connection to the hiring organization. 

To increase your network, schedule informational interviews with people at the companies where you want to work. These individuals can alert you to future job openings, and perhaps even allow you to mention their names in your cover letter, which will make your application stand out in the stack of résumés.

2) You don’t manage your time efficiently or know how to spend your energy.

Whether you’re balancing a job search while holding another job or if searching for work is your full-time focus, this is challenging! I can’t tell you how many times this scenario rings true for my clients: You sit down in front of your computer thinking, “Okay here we go, job search time!” and then three hours and 30 open browser tabs later you are left questioning what you’ve accomplished. Maybe you started with clicking a link for an open position, which led you to look up the company on LinkedIn, which led you to click on an employee profile to learn more, which brought you to another company page, which…. you get the point. The remedy for this related to mistake #3…

3) You don’t set goals.

I’m a big advocate for goal setting in both personal and professional matters (you might have guessed by the name Aspire!). The job search process is enough of an overwhelming black hole on its own, and failing to concretize what you want to accomplish only exacerbates that sensation. Life happens, so even if you plan to send three informational interview requests in one week and you only get to two, it’s still a step forward. Be proactive in planning what deliverables you want to achieve and you’ll be more likely to get there!

4) You don’t hold yourself accountable.

But Aileen, you just said life happens!?! Yes, it does. There’s a difference, however, between when something major comes up or you misjudge how long a task will take versus just making excuses. Create structure and show up for yourself in the same way you’d show up for others because if you don’t prioritize your success why will anyone else?

5) You don’t customize or perfect your application materials.

This may sound dramatic but I’d rather see someone apply to 0 jobs (and focus on networking) than submit 30 applications that aren’t tailored for the employer/role specifically… that’s how strongly I believe in the power of thoughtfully reframing your experience every time. You may be wondering how to know what language will resonate with the employer—the answers lie in the job description, the company website, and in what you hear from people who work there.  It may not be realistic to speak with someone before every application, but do these three things:

• Pick apart the post and look for themes

• Comb through the website extensively to find additional terminology

• Read a few LinkedIn profiles of people working there (bonus points if they’ve had the job you’re applying for!). Use all of this information to customize your cover letter and résumé for that particular employer.

6) You submit materials with errors or typos.

Perhaps you recycled some language from one cover letter to another and forgot to change the company name, or maybe you said fiancé instead of finance and spellcheck didn’t warn you. No one submits typos on purpose, and no one thinks it’ll ever be them, so to keep that the case, here are some pointers:

Print out what you’ve written and read it aloud in advance - this will help with words that spellcheck doesn’t catch!

Have someone else (a mentor, friend, or me!) take a peek for you since you know what you’re trying to say and your brain may skip over the details.

 

7) You don’t prepare for interviews properly.

This usually happens more by accident than because of a lack of effort. Maybe you thought you were going to have a casual conversation and then all of a sudden you’re getting grilled. Maybe you planned for a certain line of questioning and then what you’re presented with is completely different.

Whatever the case may be, there is nothing worse than that sinking feeling in your gut when you feel the conversation slipping away from you. I have another post completely dedicated to interviewing tips, but my abbreviated tips to prevent the conversation from slipping away from you are:

1. Research, research, and then research some more.

2. Remember that there is a reason you’re being interviewed. Study all of the materials you submitted and be able to explain them in greater detail.

3. Prepare questions for your interviewers in advance that are thoughtful and showcase all of the research you’ve done.

8) You don’t know what you want.

Whoa. What?! Yep, this one’s the doozy. To clarify, it isn’t a mistake not to know what you want, but it makes your job search much more difficult. There are a variety of reasons why you may be uncertain of your next step, but if you’re not convinced that you genuinely want to work somewhere, it will show in your application materials and in how you come across in your interviews.

Check in with yourself.

If you’re reading a job description and you feel that it would be difficult to write a cover letter for the position, you’re either not excited or not qualified (or both). If you assess what you want and apply for roles that align with your goals, you’ll be more energized and excited about the opportunity and that passion will shine in your writing and in your interview.

Hopefully being aware of these common job-seeking mistakes, and how to avoid them, will help you see more progress in your job search. If you need that extra pair of eyes on your applications, help creating and being held accountable to goals, or guidance towards figuring out what you really want to do, request your free career consultation with me today!

My content and this photo were originally shared on SharpHeels.com: Job Seeking Missteps