How to Improve Your Resume and Make It Stand Out to Employers?

Whether you are a fresher or seasoned professional, make sure to create an outstanding resume. Without it, you may not get a call for an interview, let alone the job. 

Therefore, when it comes to a resume, always strive for perfection. Eventually, it can open the gates of opportunities for you.

Don’t know how to create a powerful and appealing resume? Don’t fret! This article will introduce you to a few of the best strategies to create a striking resume that can help you get shortlisted for an interview. Here they are!

Tips to Write a Professional Resume

Customize Your Resume for Each Position

Remember, one-size-fits-all usually doesn’t work in competitive markets. Therefore, you must customize your resume for each position. If you don’t customize them, you may lose your chances of getting a call for an interview.

So, before applying anywhere, thoroughly check the job description and discover which skills are required. After that, make modifications accordingly and then send it to employers. Adding relevant skills, qualifications, and keywords can help you make your resume stand out and increase your chances of getting a call for an interview.

Create an Outstanding Layout

The overall layout of your resume is also very important. In fact, it can make or break your impression. Therefore, always create an outstanding layout and make your resume easy to read for everyone, including the ATS systems and humans. Before you design your resume, explore multiple templates and analyze their styles and structures. They can help you select a suitable template for your resume.

Also, no matter what template you use for your resume, clearly define different sections, including summary, experience, skills, and education. For that, use headings to separate them.

Craft an Outstanding Summary

Your resume summary is generally the first thing that most employers read. Therefore, no matter what, your summary must be professional, engaging, and powerful. In your resume summary, mention your skills, experiences, and accomplishments.

A well-crafted summary can immediately convey your expertise and spark employers’ interest in learning more about you. So, invest enough time in writing the summary. For that, you can also get some assistance from online writing tools.

For instance, if you are struggling to create an impressive and attention-grabbing summary, don’t fret at all. You can use an AI-powered summary generator to quickly write a well-refined summary that can enhance your chances of getting an interview call.

Use Simple and Professional Fonts

Apart from the resume layout, you should also be mindful of the fonts. Don’t use creative and hard-to-understand fonts for your resume. Instead, make sure to use sleek and understandable fonts. The best fonts for a professional resume include Arial, Calibri, Helvetica, and Times New Roman.

Using script and decorative fonts can make your resume look unprofessional. Moreover, don’t use more than two fonts for your resume. They can also make your resume hard to understand. Using multiple fonts can ruin the overall look of your resume.

Highlight Key Skills

Many employers don’t check the entire resume. Instead, they just search for the relevant skills and expertise. If they find them, they continue reading resumes. Otherwise, they close them and consider another applicant. Therefore, you must highlight relevant skills so anyone can find them easily without going through each section.

It can help if you create a dedicated section and mention your skills there. Moreover, write your skills in bullet points to improve their visibility. Also, remember to cite the required skills at the top of the list. This way, you can quickly get their attention and impress them at the first glance.

Mention Recent Experience First

If you are a seasoned professional who has worked at multiple companies and in various positions, list the most recent experiences at the top. Over time, people get promoted to different managerial posts. So, mentioning them first can leave a great impression and enhance your worth.

Also, hiring authorities want to know what you are doing right now instead of what you have done a few years ago. Therefore, writing experiences in reverse chronological order is a better and more practical approach.

Add Keywords

Many big companies use ATS (Applicant Tracking Systems) to go through resumes. They don’t check each resume individually. Instead, they leave this task to ATS, and these systems filter resumes and provide only relevant applications. These programs often scan resumes for specific terminologies that match job descriptions and requirements.

Hence, you should read the job descriptions, discover the keywords, and add them to your resume. Adding such words can make your resume stand out and enhance your chances of getting a call. However, adjust those words naturally and don’t sprinkle them everywhere.

Prefer Action-Oriented Language

Often, people use straightforward language to showcase their experiences and achievements. Although there is no harm in it, using an action-oriented language is much better than that. It can leave a great impression on the employers and hiring managers.

For example, when you want to mention your accomplishments, make sure to use words like “achieved,” “improved,” “led,” etc. Using such words can reflect that you have not only worked in an organization but also contributed to its success. Also, it showcases confidence, which can impress employers.

Thoroughly Proofread

A professional resume requires perfection. It must not have typos and grammatical errors. No matter how attractive and well-crafted your resume is, no one will consider it and make a call if it’s filled with mistakes. Therefore, before you send your resume anywhere, proofread it thoroughly.

For proofreading, you can get some help from an online grammar checker. It can spot many grammar, spelling, and punctuation mistakes that you may ignore while doing manual proofreading. Moreover, it will provide some valuable suggestions for removing imperfections. 

You can also get feedback from your colleagues and other professionals. They can spot some errors in them and help you know how to rectify them.

Conclusion

Creating an impressive resume isn’t difficult at all. However, many, especially freshers, struggle with it. However, whether you are a fresher or professional, implement these simple strategies, and you will be able to create outstanding resumes that help you catch employers’ attention and help you get an interview call.