You can write your own resume..... if you know how. Whether you are a
professional resume writer or a DIYer there are some essential things to
understand before writing.
A resume is an advertisement all about the job seeker, but it must also
respond to the hiring managers' key reasons for hiring, his or her pain.
Resumes that can be read easily and very quickly, that have an interesting
marketing 'hook' presented early, and have compelling work results statements
that are easily found, will generate far more interviews than resumes that lack
interest.
Generate interest within 5 seconds. Most people who read resumes, including
hiring managers, really don't read them. At best they will spend 5 seconds or
so quickly scanning the top third of the first page to see if anything of
interest jumps out of them. If not, most often people won't pursue reading
further. They are done with the resume. It's a very permanent binary decision;
There are no second chances. Therefore writing a resume that quickly generates
a lot of interest in an easy to read manner, is one key to resume writing.
People who read beyond the first 5 seconds rarely spend more than a half a
minute total scanning a resume and only if further information of interest 'pops' out at them quickly.
Densely packaged resumes are forbidding to read. Cramming information
into a multi-page resume, using the wrong choice of font and font size and
setting narrow margins is likely to cause people to toss a resume without attempting
to read it.
White space makes scanning easy: Reduce word count to those relevant few words that respond to the hiring managers' pain. Save the rest for interviews.
Culling words enables using an ideal font size such as Arial 12pt with 1 inch
side margins making it easy to read. And it focuses the resume on the critical
few things that win interviews.
Create work results bullets that generate interviews. The bullets should demonstrate achievements that relate to the hiring managers' key needs to hire. These needs
are rarely adequately described in a job description. It is usually necessary to find out who the
hiring manager is and make direct voice contact. There are resources for learning the
necessary skills and techniques to do so. For instance
bit.ly/1TEqj93 among others.
Most people write extensively about
their responsibilities and activities. It is true that responsibilities are
important, but not nearly as much as the results of one's work. Properly
written results statements is another key resume writing skill.
ATS may reject qualified job candidates. Compounding resume
writing is Applicant Tracking System (ATS) software used by over 60% of U.S.
companies and many other countries. One of the many functions of ATS is extracting
resume information it has been told to search for and scoring candidates on a
scale of 1 to 10. In most hiring processes ATS 'reads' resumes before a human ever sees them. It
forwards only the top scoring candidates to HR where a human will then decide
which candidates should be sent to the hiring manager.
There are over 40 attributes that can be unwittingly built into a resume
that will cause ATS issues that result in either non-response or outright
rejection, regardless of the actual qualifications of the candidate. Since it happens without human intervention, understanding what the 40
attributes are and how to work around them is a necessary skill for anyone who
writes a resume.
Visit bit.ly/1TEqj93 Send your resume to kl@hoochresumes.com for a FREE analysis Today!