The joys of resume writing
We’ve all struggled with the trials and tribulations of creating the perfect resume. And through my travels, I’ve really only heard negative things about resume development.
“I hate formatting,” “What am I skilled at?” “There’s no way you could know me just by looking at a piece of paper.” These are all complaints I’ve heard time and again when discussing resumes with others.
Resumes are here to stay
Now, they are all valid annoyances. However, the one complaint I find most common and, arguably, most valid, is the claim that resumes are “outdated.”
Even though the days of mailing in a hard copy of your resume to every office around town are virtually gone, there is still practice of a manager skimming a typically formatted resume. Now it’s just done electronically; and, instead of crumbling up the resume and throwing it in the trash, the manager just hits “delete” in their email.
Try a new approach
I’m not here to completely bash resumes and come up with some clever alternative. Rather, I’d like to stress the significance of teaching an old dog new tricks.
So, what do I mean by that? Well, resumes are not going anywhere – at least not anytime soon. But, we can rebrand ourselves on paper by thinking a little outside of the box.
Vocab is everything
It is good practice to update your resume every few months, regardless if you’re on the job hunt or not. But, what can really be helpful is to spice up the vocabulary.
It seems that just about everyone has “good time management skills” and is “loyal, dependable, and hard working.” Well, that’s great, but if 20 resumes come to an inbox saying the same thing, what do you think your chances are?
Take action
We are now a society of doing, so it is beneficial to make your resume reflect that. Try using action verbs, including: trained, strengthened, introduced, oversaw, planned, conceptualized, and increased.
Avoid using cliché terminology like: team player, go-getter, detail-oriented, and results-driven. These are all phrases that, theoretically, everyone should be skilled in.
Not so much you, but what you’ve done
Instead, focus less on your personality and more on what you’ve accomplished. You can do this by using terms such as: achieved, improved, influenced, launched, and created.
Make sure your resume is an accurate depiction of what you’ve achieved and what you can offer. By using a combination of common sense and creativity, you should have no problem making an awesome resume.
