Resume Tips and Strong Words
A common weakness I find when customers ask me ‘to make their resume strong’ is the words. Words are powerful and you need to get over your humbleness and sell yourself with powerful words.
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Some simple resume tips:
- Delete all weak words or phrases e.g. ‘interpersonal skills’ or ‘increased sales’. It’s better to use power words and show what your interpersonal skills have achieved in the workforce or how you increased sales and added to the productivity of your company. This adds context and is telling those culling that you actually know what you do and they need to get you into an interview.
- Don’t use excess words – put a lid on it. Every word has to add value to your resume so make them all work.
- Don’t repeat the same thing using different words. Your words are taking up space and your prospective employer will get the message with fewer stronger words.
- Highlight specific skills and make them relevant to the job you are applying for.
- Dot points are great. Put your strong words first to make them stand out.
- Use a business font and one font only.
- Don’t bury key information in the hope it will get spotted.
- Don’t bother telling your potential employer what a nice person and how hard working you are – they want you for your skills and experience and what value you can add to their business. They will work the rest out in your interview or your reference checks. To me this says you really aren’t comfortable with your skills.
What your future employer wants
What your future employer wants to see is that you can achieve results, transfer your skills and can work with other staff members, both above your position and below it. It will help if you find out as much about your future company as possible. Google them and spend some time researching online, including their own website. The ‘About Us’ page is usually very insightful of the culture of the organisation and it’s members. If the Company name is not mentioned in the advertisement, quickly ring the recruitment agent and ask. Mostly they will tell you or give you a pretty good indication. Take care with jargon. Jargon can be tricky. On one hand it shows you understand the industry but on the other hand jargon quickly becomes redundant and can be seen as a cover-up for lack of in-depth knowledge. A clever alternative is to use words that concisely explain the point you want to make and adds further context. Some other helpful resume tips
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