Is your resume helping or hurting your career opportunities? How do you know if your resume is affecting your career? The simple answer would be: if you’re obtaining interviews, it must be helpful and if not, it must be hurtful. However, most of the times, this is not enough to evaluate how effective your career resume is, especially if you are a newbie in the fast-evolving and competitive job market.
In-order-to make a solid evaluation of what your resume is doing for your career, you must realize certain signs that will tell whether it is helping or hurting your career opportunities. Hire a professional resume writing service today.
If you are in a stagnant situation on your career path due to a bad resume, evaluate the following on your resume:
1. Never start with a career objective: Starting off a resume with a statement of a career objective is an outdated trend. Although it sounds good on a conventional level, it is going to do no other than harm if included in your resume. Today’s recruiters are seeking to see if the candidates have what they are looking for, not what the candidates are seeking for themselves. Therefore, never include this irrelevant information in your resume by any means.
2. Choose only common job titles: Yes, choose only common job titles, not the quirky ones. The quirky job titles are not just unusual and unpopular but are also devoid of job context. Of course, they sound unique and interesting but they are never going to help you succeed in the competitive job market. After all, how can a fancy title like ‘Marketing Ninja’ pass through the Applicant Tracking System where only specific keywords are searched?
3. Keep your history short and sweet: If you want your work history to be well-noticed by the recruiters, who don’t spend more than six seconds on average for scanning a resume, you must make sure that your history is short and sweet with 100% relevancy. Cut to the chase while you describe your history pertaining to the new job. Being concise is another way to ascertain that your resume will help but not hurt your career opportunities.
4. Explain any big employment gaps: If your career history has a big employment gap, let the recruiters know by leaving a line of description. The recruiters do understand that you can have unexpected employment gaps due to different reasons. And all they want is to see you have mentioned it in your resume. For example, Baby care. Therefore, never leave your significant employment gap as a confusing mystery or it might be hurting your career opportunities.
5. Be specific: This golden rule applies throughout the resume. When it comes to being specific in your resume, you should focus on mentioning your accomplishments rather than your mundane duties which everyone can do. Use more data and numbers to describe your work history details, for e.g. sales growth percentage. While mentioning the duration of your previous jobs, do mention the specific dates.
6. Use the right format: Your resume format speaks a lot about your professionalism. In addition, using the right format is also the key to avoid painful rejection through the Applicant Tracking System. Always make sure that your resume is in .doc or .txt format and is free from any kind of graphics and tables. Besides, it must have relevant keywords placed contextually throughout your resume. Moreover, while submitting the resume, upload it rather than typing it out. To put it simply: the friendlier your resume is to the ATS, the closer you are to a successful career.
As mentioned above, your resume can be transformed into a sales document by applying various tips and techniques. Once you have a compelling sales document or a perfect resume in hand, you’re ready to conquer numerous other applicants. But if your resume is still hurting your career opportunities, it is a sign that you should call for professional help. Hurry up. Call your resume writing company right now!
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