Most hiring managers still expect applicants to submit a resume, even if they also look at their LinkedIn profile. Online applications are set up for the benefit of applicants, as some applicant tracking systems (ATS) automatically parse your uploaded resume into a digital candidate profile that can be searched or filtered by recruiters. However, these systems tend to let “see resume” responses and similar responses be death to your application.
Tailor your resume to the job you are applying for, reviewing the job description and including relevant information. Do not write “see resume” after you’ve invested time into creating the perfect resume, as it can be annoying and repetitive. Companies may ask for the resume as a backup if the info you manually enter passes their bot tests. If the application specifically requests you attach a resume, it should be recent and have skills that show value for your target job.
In general, build a master resume with all kinds of things, including name, contact information, job history, qualifications, and education. When submitting a cover letter, applying for a job by email, or responding to an online application, use “please find attached my resume” when submitting a cover letter, applying for a job by email, or responding.
Remember, never put “see resume” on your application because any keyword search could potentially find your resume in the system.
📹 5 Resume Mistakes You MUST Avoid (with real examples)!
Resumes are easy to create, sure, but with so many rules and nuances, it’s hard to get exactly right And that’s why in this …
📹 5 Things You Don’t Need on Your Resume Anymore
If you think your resume is not performing well, then you’re probably right. If your resume is like most peoples, you have a lot of …
🕵🏻 Did you catch any mistakes in your resume after perusal this article? TIMESTAMPS 00:00 5 Resume Mistakes to Avoid 00:42 Putting Education above Experience 01:52 Not Showing Impact 02:53 Failing to Include Meaningful Metrics 04:32 Not Tailoring Resume for Each Application 05:34 Overlooking the Small Things
I’m a job coach in my day job (I review and rewrite resumes for job seekers) and you’ve nailed a lot of the big things I talk about every single day. Particularly when you speak about including impact, tailoring resumes and prioritizing work experience – you are absolutely correct. However, there are a couple more things I would add: professional summaries and ATS. It is really important to begin a with a brief 1-3 sentence summary overviewing your professional history as it relates to your target job. It is, in fact, the easiest way to keyword target and tailor a job with low effort. Recruiters and hiring managers spend less than a minute on most individual resumes, so summarizing your relevant experience upfront in an elevator pitch helps you gain traction. I’ve compared to it the thesis statement of your professional career, that you back up with your well rounded, achievement based bullets below. Most employers today utilize some form of ATS (applicant tracking system) to process online applications. Many of these will take a resume and parse it through an internal reader, which converts it to a keyword searchable format and into a universal basic template. You might be surprised by how few hiring manager understand this is happening, but it can absolutely destroy the resume if it’s not formatted correctly. Entire sections of data can be eliminated, or mashed together resulting in a resume that is unreadable. Make sure you are optimizing for ATS success with both formatting (plain, not highly formatted, no columns/pictures/tables, left justified with standard section headings) and keyword targeting.
What I’ve found to be the case is that it really doesn’t matter whether Education or Experience is listed first. It matters that the most relevant part of your background is listed first. Almost all of my previous work has been in retail or other form of customer service, but the position I want to be in is my first job was that of a market researcher. The fact that I was a janitor, a cashier, and a call center rep will not help me get into marketing research. My education is going to be a stronger highlight because my bachelor’s degree proves that I am good at research (major was history), while my master’s (MBA in marketing management) proves that I understand how business works and how to create a market strategy. When I put my experience first, I was never noticed (at least not by reputable companies). When I put my education first, I got more attention. IMO, these hard rules about what to list first on a résumé don’t always work, especially for younger jobseekers/recent graduates trying to start their career. (Edit: added other roles to better prove my point)
Hi Jeff! Just wanted to let you know that after perusal countless articles you’ve made and implementing these strategies, I’ve landed an amazing job offer. I got the official offer letter today. I just wanted to say thank you and let you know that you’re truly helping people with these articles. All the best! Keep up the amazing content 😁
Great Jeff! 👍 I totally agree with all of your points. Especially the 2nd and 3rd (point to metrics and impact of them), the 4th (about tailoring resume for each job you apply) and off course avoid typos and grammar mistakes that override any skills or experience. What I usually advise friends is: 1) read carefully what the company needs and spot on them in your resume, 2) include metrics and achievements that had meaningful impact on past jobs and 3) include at the bottom of resume a graphic section of 2 rows with 4 skills on each row, based on word cloud generator, so to keep the attention of recruiters.
As a technical interviewer with over quarter century of experience, these are all fantastic points. Good CV is the only way they are going to decide if they want to talk to you or not. I noticed that whether you can or can’t be bothered to take care of your CV is a sign of attitude. If you can’t put effort to take care of your own CV you are unlikely to put effort into anything. When applying to a company, ask yourself: why would anybody at X care to talk to me? I don’t want to hear about the job you were performing. “Performing” is not an accomplishment. When presented with two otherwise equal candidate CVs, one from a developer who “worked” for 5 years and another who has actually been solving problems, who do you think I will want to talk to first? The guy who’s biggest accomplishment is he wasn’t fired for a long time?
A word of caution on trying to over-tailor your CV/Resume, it can backfire if the job post is written by a recruiter who doesn’t 100% know what they’re talking about. Cherry pick which ones are noteworthy, and if possible, have a look at some other ads from the same firm to see which of the requirements are copy/paste. The hiring manager might be interested in things other than your customer-centric approach and team playing shenanigans, for a Data Engineer role working remotely.
Also some people don’t use any colours which makes their resume plain… you should use the colour on your resume which is similar to the company scheme you are applying for … you can look at their homepage and find out which colour they use on their homepage, that way you would attract their attention immediately when they see your resume and psychological impact would be they start seeing you part of their group already from the beginning.. this is very subtle but effective trick
Great advice Jeff – thank you! Point 1, putting experience above education. Would this be applicable to a professional in their first year of full-time work (tech industry) after graduating with a Master’s degree (Digital Marketing)? They have over 3 years of past working experience combining internships in the field, part-time work and a side business. Also in reference to this, what are your thoughts on leaving graduation dates off the education section? Can it look a bit inconsistent, eager to hear your thoughts! thanks again.
When my school’s career center reviewed my resume, they said to put my education first. I loved my school so I took that as gospel. However, I got no callbacks. Then I see this article, and realized OF COURSE a school would want their name up first in an alumni’s resume. It was such a weird realization.
Thank you Jeff for the useful information! I just open a LinkedIn account by following your article tutorial. Currently, I’m confused when I work on my LinkedIn and resume, you just point out the difference between two of those. Although I don’t have full-time experience, I’ll put the work experience on top based on the interview experience and your advice.
Hey Jeff, Another amazing article, your articles are compelling me to become a fan of yours 😊 Keep up the good work you have been doing and contribute towards betterment of the communities, god bless !! One query: I believe the resume PDF you shared in this for the ‘good resume’ is ATS compliant, please confirm. Thanks.
Ideally one should tailor-made his résumé based on the jobs he is applying for; however this practice could be very inefficient, for no two (real) jobs are identical. In case you found two job ads having identical job descriptions, you should be in high alert. I used to tailor-made my résumé and applied for fewer jobs like what this article has advised but the response was never good. Then I changed my tactics – make my résumé more generic and send them to as many relevant jobs as possible, and I have received much higher responses. Maybe it is location specific – I am seeking jobs in Hong Kong and HRs there don’t like spending time reading résumés carefully, they just like scanning key words. But that may not be the hiring practice of other places.
Hi Jeff, what about some supportive role that doesn’t have much quantifiable metrics? For example, an in house legal counsel, their main role will be negotiating, vetting & drafting contracts and anticipating risk to prevent financial losses. Feel like for this type of professional role, too much emphasis on the numbers & achievements does not sound appropriate & a little bit of bragging 🤔
No one reads your resume, all selected resumes go through search words. Then, someone will read your cover letter, who will recommend the hiring department for your interview. Most of the time, you’ll find that the interviewers are clueless about your background. You’ll have to remind them who you are, and who you know within the company. So, it is recommend that you make as many friends as possible during your college and high school if you are starting out. Trustworthiness is the number 1 criteria for getting hired, skills can be learned.
I like the tip about metrics. I’ve been helping someone in my family write a resume and we’ve managed to shift the writing from job description and responsibilities to “accomplished x as measured by y by doing z”. However, we don’t have specific numbers or percentages for many of them. Part of the problem is that he often hasn’t been privy to that information (such as knowing exactly the revenue or profit for the stores he’s worked for) and I believe part of the problem is, he’s never seen the value in knowing that information (I’ve since told him he needs to start getting chummy with his bosses and talking about his performance and store performance so he can include it in resume, but let’s see if he does.) So my question is: If you know you had an impact, let’s say increased sales because you saw that something you did lead to more people buying a product, but you don’t have specific metrics such as “20% increase in sales” or “20% increase in customer volume”, how do you remedy that on your resume? Do you leave it as general as “Increased sales”? How bad does that look?
I was curios about what you will say so I’ve watched the article. And I agree that all those do help you being picked up more often. Totally agree. However, yes, there’s a however part. I do not agree with the idea of “tailoring” your CV for the job. Here’s why: There’s a lot of businesses out there. I’ll give you a more detailed overview about me and my skills than a random search on a linkdin profile (which in my case shows even less, just work places and time). I’m not going to tailor every single CV, even if this rises my chases of being called to an interview by 10%. If they are interested enough by the overview they will call, otherwise they will not. And that’s it, we can go into details about metrics, impacts and so on while discussing face to face or online. I’m not just gonna send a piece of “paper” that has all my life on it to someone else, even for the purpose of hiring. They only get to know that while we talk if they are curios, or after. And yes, I do acknowledge that: not adding metrics, not adding impact and not tailoring for each job will lower my chances. I also acknowledge that recruiters or companies don’t even bother to post the salary ranges they are willing to hire for in their “search for employee” announce. They also do not specify each benefit you are getting while working there. They often can’t even specify exactly on what you will be working. They can’t give concrete details about the project or present an actual problem they have for which they require assistance.
In regards to your first point about putting education above experience, I somewhat disagree though also agree at the same time. It really depends on the situation. If you are a (VERY) recent college graduate or about to graduate college and you don’t have a lot of experience (or even relevant experience), then it makes sense to put your education above experience. There are also industries (such as education for example) where education is going to be just as important, if not more so, than your experience so it really depends. It really is a case by case thing. I always make the point to my students that it’s about what you want to emphasize and what you can minimize (or even better take out if possible– e.g., if you’re applying for nursing job, it doesn’t make sense to put your barista job from your senior year of high school on your resume). The rest I 100% agree with.
You should make a article of Resume for Freshers. Because it’s difficult to highlight experience achivement as a fresher and 99% of the article always shows tips for someone who has already worked not for freshers who actually need help. Additionally, many individuals have done little to no internships, often in smaller companies. For these people, education should be prioritized over experience.🤔 Edit: BTW great article
Please Jeff (or anybody) cover the NDA topic in resume writing? How do you list quantifiable results when such items as; sales dollars, growth ect, or even the companies or projects worked on are under a non-disclosure? It’s common in some tech sectors, government/federal contracts. Especially concerned with LinkedIn.
Hey jeff, love your articles! I’ve watched both this and your original resume article and 3 things that I’m just not quite able to figure out are: 1. as a computer engineering student, I’ve never had any internships and I’m actually trying to get into one, so how can I use “Measurable Metrics” when I have none? I’ve only done projects as part of my coursework, and a lot of the time most people got high grades so there’s nothing to use there. 2. for a student, wouldn’t you agree that education should be put higher than experience? since students usually don’t have any real-world experience, the education metric is one a hiring manager will look for. (he’ll want to know also what courses I’ve completed so far) 3. the word cloud generator sounds great in theory but for tech jobs I am not really getting something I can use, maybe because the roles are so very different
I sent my resume to the resume writing service of the two largest professional services recruiters in the UK and it was £££. Strange thing is that their advice was completely contradictory. I don’t really think recruiters have a systematic cognitive approach but just scan a resume for keywords, looking for a reason to reject the candidate.
Hi @Jeff Su. This Is very interesting, thank you. Still, what if one had times of his Life where he did not “perform well”(to use a terminology that I do not like). Would you put them in your CV? Would you try ti Hide those parts? How about LinkedIn? In my case for instance, I was very good till the First year of uni. So basically from Age 6 till 20. Then I fell into depression and my academic performance was the last thing I was caring about. Now I am ok, but It night be helpful of you all guys targeted your articles also to less “effettive” people. Still good job with everything. It’s all very useful.
All of the resume building classes, professional help, and articles I have watched and this is the first time I have ever heard some emphasize the hyphens. I am a stickler for having things having a uniform look. I have heard all of my teachings speak on formatting but those little details seem to be so easy to miss for most.
Hey Jeff! I wanted to confirm if the 1st Resume tip was exclusive to job seekers already at a job or a student as well. The reason I ask is if we are looking for a job after a Master’s, then the Master’s degree becomes extremely relevant to the hiring partners, right? This way, education is more important the prior work ex? Thanks for your answer!
Hi Jeff! Thanks for great insights but I need some clarification here! I am from India, 5 years in sales and then switched to marketing for a year. I am now actively seeking marketing roles in Germany since I recently Moved here. But the catch is that I have limited experience in marketing. How do I tailor my CV for marketing when I have more of sales experience. Also in my first year of marketing, I did routine work nothing extraordinary. M worried that I am lacking something here which might end up me not landing a job. Also any specific tip for German market ?
The education part is dependent on the industry you’re going to. Recruiters will not even consider you if you don’t have a state or national license for some jobs. Your job experience is irrelevant if you don’t make it clear you have these licenses or certificate because some companies require you have them and some don’t.
Hi Jeff, love your content – I’m a long time subscriber. From my experience being on interview panels in various industries, just ‘showing impact’ and ‘showing metrics’ may not be sufficient. Often we want to know a candidate’s role in the company – the actual day to day tasks – especially for technical roles or roles with the same title but varying in duties.
I got many jobs in my day despite the fact that I use a CV template, where education comes first. I might argue that a prospective employer who after wasting 30 seconds on education does not read any further but moves to the next candidate is not an employer I would want to work for. I have worked both as a consultant and as an entrepreneur; depending on the kind of skills you need, a scrutiny may go well beyond a CV, a motivation letter, or even a performance at interviews, if you want to get the best. Would someone hire a cook, for example, by just looking at papers or listening to eloquent answers during an interview?
I can give anyone a few good tips. If you’ve got rare achievements mentioned on your CV (say passing a CFA level 1 and 2 exams) it does not really matter how you structure your CV. You can write it on toilet paper, its not the organisation of things on it what matters, hidden gems is what most employees are after.
Ahh… But the crux is that, the copy and paste method won’t work with creative resumes, which is expected for designer/artist roles. So that 3 high quality resumes is not just a simple copy and paste but will include a ton of re-layout and reorganization for the graphics and other design elements along with the presented information, and this will most likely probably take another freaking 2-3 or more days to finish each. Imagine if it’s for such a broad range of skillsets like multimedia, do we need to to create 5 – 10 different creative CVs or just risk not maximizing the opportunities being presented because our CV is not tailored enough?
It’s challenging to tailor resumes these days as many companies want you to fill out an online application and / or upload your resume. They have that one resume you uploaded on file, and that resume is used for all job applications with the company. You can’t send out different resumes to different various positions within that company. As a result you are forced to make a bloated, generic resume sent to everyone rather than several targeted resumes sent to individual hiring managers for each position.
Basically, the job hiring process is BS. Of course spelling and grammar are important. HR people are generally lazy and dont put much effort into the hiring process. At the end of the day, it’s about who you know, always has been. If you think having 50 different resumes created for 50 jobs is worth your time, then good luck.
Looking for a full-time position as a fresh graduate. Used to be very depressed cuz sometimes I send out 10 resumes and may only get 1 reply. After I saw you send literally 367 cold emails I feel more confident, don’t know why😂😂😂 Respect you for your effort and for making career advice content like this. Very helpful for sure!
We had two candidates applied for a job. The first one whose resume showed every achievement and honor programs he had in highschool and college, but only 2 years old working experience. The second one only had two years of college but showed a lot of projects and achievement in his 10 years of working experience. Eventually we went for the second one and very happy with our decision. I am not saying college is useless, but employers shouldn’t focus on what AP class someone had or famous school he/she went, unless you only look for newly graduated candidates.
Hey Jeff. Good to see these Resume tips. I implied all the tips, except the length.. I am ready 400 words max… is this bad? Since I will started out as a fresher now, I only have experiences from research and interns and projects too.. What should I do now? I have kept the length to 1 page but the no. Of words… is bugging me. Need ur advice
what sections do you always include on a resume and how do you decide to order them? example: experience goes before education, what about certifications or volunteer work? next question, what’s your advice for showing a career change on the resume? in this case, better to list the jobs but only have context for the relevant new field or have a summary at the top highlighting the benefits of the transition?
This is really good information but I am concerned that we tend to overrely on toxic platforms like LinkedIn. I’ve deleted my account twice over the toxic abusive behavior going on between users with power positions towards job seekers at lower levels. I also got rid of all my social media accounts as well. Emplpyers have no business going through profiles. But I love the information on resume building and the valuable tips.
When was going for new roles i had a process, i would breakdown the job ad, bullet point by the key take aways and then write my experience specifically for those. And usually bolded the word in the sentence that highlights that requirement. I also did other stuff like company research. Looking at reviews of the company from former employees, etc. Because this gives you good questions for the interview. Ive always got an interview for every job i did this with. My job prep is usually 5 one note pages long.
Hi Jeff Thankyou for your amazing content. Im recent graduate. I did my bachelor’s in mechanical engineering and without any job experience i pursued my masters in engineering management. As i have no experience in related field how do i create a impressive resume being genuine. Also my other question is as an international student in Australia i did different jobs which is irrelevant to the field of my study for example I worked in petrol station, i worked in kitchen, i worked as a disability support worker, as an Assistant in Nursing on aged care. These are the only experience i have got so far. Do you think we should put these experience as logically they donot contribute to the roles directly but they do helped me build my soft skills like communication and team work. What do you suggest? Waiting your reply.
Hello Jeff, my name is Felix from Kenya and I have been a follower your website and I have learned a lot. I have been applying for jobs on linked as well as in company websites. I adjusted few tricks in my LinkedIn profile and I usually have like 3 to 5 views daily but still I think employers don’t get convinced enough. Would you kindly be in a position to review my resume if it’s ok by you?
Really helpful ❤. Thanks alot ❤. I want to ask it’s my first time doing cv. first of all i am an interior design student. Do i have toake my cv simple or make a simple design it’s better as i saw a lot of articles say it should be simple bit i am a designer so shouldn’t i put my personality in tge design of the layout of the cv? Another question sorry 😅 should the lines of the text be below each other or can i make points beside each other i mean like Dividing a title into bullet points next to each other?
Hi Jeff, I hope you are doing great. I couldn’t see any reference link for resume for free. One Google Doc link is provided that asked for money. Secondly I am hunting for a job right now and am desperate really as am not getting any call although I have more than 6 years experience. I guess definitely there must be mistake in my resume. Would you mind helping me out please?
0:46 so what do you do when you don’t have much if any work experience? My biggest issue is.. I’m disabled, have a large gap between hs graduation and now.. no work experience other than nanny/baby sitting. But I’m currently going to college and my major is in biological science. I’ve been thinking of adding a minor and certifications.. is this even worth it??
People in my class are saying they applied to hundreds of jobs and got like 4 interviews where as I’ve already been doing what you’re saying and really tailored my application for this one posting (I worked on it for almost 3 days but it also required a portfolio). And the company said they received 100s of applications but mine was one of the 8 that made it to pre-screening and then 1 of the 4 that made it to a formal interview. I just finished the third and final round which was a 3 hour assignment (they’re paying the base salary for it don’t worry). Regardless, I got this far with 1 super tailored application. Don’t copy and paste your resume and cover letter to any and everything you see, even if they’re all the same field or even position title.
Hi Jeff! Thanks for the awesome article. I’m looking to apply for a software developer/engineer internship or job, but I don’t have much work experience yet. I’ve completed two projects with companies as part of my school curriculum. I’ll be honest, I feel a bit underskilled compared to my peers, and my resume isn’t packed with extracurriculars. Any tips on boosting my CV or kickstarting my career before I graduate? Thanks a bunch!
Thoughts on applying for the 90/100 job posts where they have grammatical, formatting, etc. errors throughout? I saw one yesterday where the employer literally copied the entire body of an email sent to him/her, including “here is the job description we used last time we needed to fill this role….update points of contact….” So on and so forth. Even included the signature line of the email.…
Jeff, i downloaded your resume (as a business owner) i had a look at it 1. I wouldn’t hire you off the back of that resume i see too much bullshit At the end of the day an employer doesn’t want to waste time with your bullshit all we want to know is… What experience do you have (without you flashing it up) Can you do the job that we ask of you Are you going to be a headache and a liability in our company that’s all we give a shit about This article is not reflective of a resume that would pass an interview process also No one gives 2 shits about a hyphen out of place (regardless of what you think) There are 2 ways to write a resume 1. The way that you tube articles and so called recruitment managers tell you to do it this is not the way you should do it, Usually they have little to no idea and generally focus on getting a large number of people on their call list so that when they call a person like me they can make themselves look good by saying, Look, we have 200 people just waiting in line to jump into a role that you might be offering Meaning, if they screw you around they can negotiate a higher price with me or other employers and thereby get a better rate for themselves I’L TELL YOU A SECRET THOUGH Employers know that the recruitment officer has little to no clue of the role, but they pretend that they do and we in turn pretend that we don’t know that they are pretending at the end of the day they just serve a purpose, that being THEY ARE A FILTER, They waste time so we don’t have to 2.
The way it was put to me is a recruiter in a high demand job is getting hundreds of applications that they need to filter down to a handful of candidates to actually have interview. You don’t want to give them any reason, no matter how small, to put your resume in the round bin (trash). Consistent formatting then tells the recruiter that you have attention to detail that others may lack.
I hire People all the time. Very high tech firm with extreme technical requirements. If we are hiring anyone with novice experience The first section I look at is education. A quality school and excelent GPA is 100% necessary. After about 8 years experience experience starts to matter more. With our requirements relevant experience is all that matters. For high end professional jobs resumes should be bespoke for the position.
I will say from experience when it comes to interviewing people, the majority of times we don’t have enough time to look at the resumes of the people we are interviewing as our main duties take priority .We take what HR gives us and really depend on the interviewee to tell and sell us their history and knowledge. Sometimes I’m able to find 30 minutes of free time when we are doing quarterly hires to look at the panel. Anyways! Prep your resume well as many times the people who are interviewing you haven’t even touched your resume. It’s sitting unread in their in-box
im so glad i went the blue collar route, the white collar environment is mind numbing. ive gotten every job ive ever inquired for. they all went very smooth and very short and not once did i have to make a resume. i just show up, talk to the boss, and tell them i want the job and i can start right away. they may ask some important questions like if i have transportation to get to work and such and thats about it. now a days im the one doing the interviewing and from my current perspective i understand now why i always got the job. i dont want to read a lengthy resume full of talking points trying to manipulate me in to liking them more than anyone else. people that know better know what you are trying to do, just keep it short sweet and to the point. the way i see it from my perspective is the kind of mentality that is used to make resumes in such a way are not the kind of mentalities i want in my work force. again, im not white collar so there is a difference here. i only want people that are simple to work with and can do the job assigned to them without any problems or baggage. so dont tell me youve worked at a dozen other places, dont tell me about how you will be on time every day, dont tell me how badly you want the job. just make it clear that you want the job, youd be happy to work there, you can see yourself working at that job for a long time and you can start right away.
I find metrics on a resume to be self centric. In a modern word those metrics are the result of team work (at least in the tech world). An analyst evaluatse the needs, an architect the specs, a devs de-risk the tasks, tasks are groomed(questions are asked to the analysts,/architects/system designers), the stories are voted. The sprint starts. The devs take development tasks. Each task must be reviewed by 2 others devs. Everything is deployed to QA and tested by system designers and testers. The app goes through pen tester’s hands. Documentation has to be written/completed both by dev, architects, managers before each deployment to prod. The app is deployed. Fixes may be necessary. Some features may be pulled out for future deployments. So yes, tell me you did something in the app that ended up with an increase of 5% in customer satisfaction and I will ask where was your team when your was doing that. You never worked in a team?
Hey @JeffSu I graduated school a little over a year ago with a degree in Mechanical Engineering. I have a little over a year of industry experience but I am looking for another job within the same industry and I have a question about where to place my education. Reviewing various resume articles it seems the consensus is to place my education at the bottom of my resume since I have some industry experience, versus when I was in school it was recommended I place it at the top near the header. If you could answer that for me that would be greatly appreciated!
I screened resumes for engineering hiring a few times. No one cares about your stellar GPA because they are easily bought. And ABSOLUTELY no one cares about your SAT scores. Avoid vague words like “assisted” – that tells me nothing. EXACTLY WHAT DID YOU DO. What were your responsibilities and deliverables.
Should I really put my GPA on? In my country there’s a culture that the best Universities are the toughest ones for you to get in and stay on. It’s implied you should quit if you can’t keep the Uni standards. The 75% of my alumni have score less than 6 (that’s a GPA 0.0 right) the average score is 4; then here my score of 7.8 is quite remarkable but if I want to apply to a job abroad can my GPA actually man something? Should I actually put it in my resumè? I’m a Biomedical Engineering major in Unifesp (5th best in America Latina). I’m looking for my first internship I’m in third year but I’ve already completed 90% of my classes in hours. I plan to take on a on-site or hybrid job local or remote abroad that might not be too specific for my 4th year to gain experience and latter in my 5th get the mandatory internship on a more standard role.
Hello Jeff, thank you very much for posting this! Your articles have been very helpful. I note you had advised “work experience” should be before “education”. If I am an individual who has been working for the last decade but took a break (left my job) to pursue a Master’s degree, should I still indicate “education” behind “work experience”? I am unsure in this regard, given my most recent “experience” in a way, would be “education”.
Isn’t putting your SAT and GMAT scores on your Resume a faux pas? I just downloaded a copy of your resume, and you have them listed. I would never list my ACT and LSAT scores on my resume. I would feel way too pretentious for me to put them on there. I scored very well on those standadized tests but that’s all it is a test that helped me get into a school and nothing else.
education comes before experience 99% of the time to show to recruiters what type of person they are dealing with. If they’re only taking target school candidates, having education at the top helps employers scrap who they don’t want faster. In more competitive areas, they’ll scrap someone immediately who doesn’t reach a certain GPA criteria. It’s simply not a mistake to have education first. Your goal is to make the life of the recruiter easier
Hello, I find your article very informational. I was wondering how do you do your article editing as far as when you are talking and then you have the résumé popping up then being highlighted then it disappears and comes back to you talking and then you have other animations popping up. I’ve always wanted to learn this, but I’m not sure what I’m supposed to be looking up. I really appreciate it.❤
Good day Mr.Jeff, is there a way for me to still have a great resume with no experience. Im currently 16 and still in school but I’m confident in my writing skills, and ability to produce great cta’s on any product Im given. Thankyou for taking your time to read this. I look forward to hearing from you soon❤
How important it is to have a ATS Friendly resumé? I think some modern resumé formatting ideas so clean and eye catching while 99,99 ATS friendly resumés are so dull and boring that makes me sad to have to format my resumé for that. But everyone tells me that ATS are really a thing and i should bow to them… I just find it interesting that i dont remember reading about it that famous Austin Belcak article. So whats your opinion?
Firstly, thanks a ton! Liked your guidance, I really liked what you presented ~3.55… which is ‘So what ?’, ‘So what ?’ …. and then comes ‘impact’ This is very important point, especially for people who want to move from middle management towards senior management…. Advice well taken ! Shailesh ❤
Good points but there is so much industry and local nuance. My more “general” resume/cv is still pulling offers 4 years after last swapped roles….it would require a touch up to get in front of a hiring manager however without lifting a finger I’m probably closer than most people who customized their application.
I enjoyed this article, but it seems it’s for people with real jobs looking for even better real jobs. People who open boxes of cans of green beans, or shampoo, or whatever, and set the product on a shelf, alongside hundreds of others doing the same thing, don’t have metrics of impact for their company. Did you go through all 16 pallets that were eight or nine feet tall and contained thousands of items during your shift? Well, some of it, yeah. It’s not possible to do the whole thing in one go. The person assigning me the task told me as much, and I know that’s true based on being there for way too long. Etc. Wanting to do something nightshift only, but to help the environment instead of propping up the retail space seems rather difficult.
I believe some experiences are much easier to quantify and explain impact than others. There’re a ton of work that needs to be done that doesn’t make any presentable impact other than it’s neat and keep the company running. Say you are in sales you can write your sales number and increase and help acquire how many new clients, but if you are in accounting what in the world would you write? You spot a numerical error and saved the company a billion dollars?? If your job doesn’t entail a lot of initiatives and changes the impact can hardly be explained.
How do you track metrics to put on your resume when you’re in a job? It’s not like anyone is giving you statistics on your impact in the company and telling you that you increased revenue by x percent etc. So what are we even doing when we’re measuring impact, just making stuff up? I mean, how else do we have any idea what our impact is?
Yeah but what if you got a college diploma and had 0 internships because the college didn’t offer it and no experience related to the field. For example, going from doing cashier jobs in college straight to applying for IT helpdesk roles. Should cashier experience be above an it diploma for your first it job?
I hate all these BS. Where the F. are we going with these crazy formal requirements ?! An employer looks for somebody that can do the job properly, then a competent candidate applies to do the job and normaly there are two o three interviews plus 6 months probation period to be evaluated by your boss and H.R. Rep. It is more than enough if you ask me. Guys don’t play this game anymore, it is just made up to benefit recruitment consultants and H.R. B.S. . If you find it crazy like it really is, just start your own business as I did. Don’t play stupid games. Don’t give away your time and your money to people that just profit on your situation.
Hello, I really need your help. I’m a fresh graduate without any work experiences except my undergrad internships. I watched tons of articles saying that I have to put first my educ experience in that case, but then I watched yours. What should I really do? I’ll apply tomorrow so I hope you notice me, thank you!
Hey Jeff! I really enjoyed your article😊. Here’s my concern- I’m having trouble creating the perfect cover letter to land a job. As someone not too long out of high school, all my job career experience consists of is 2+ years of customer service in retail, that is it. To add on to that, I don’t have many hard skills, just primarily soft ones. I would love to land a CSR job, but it’s been challenging. Could I please have some tips?
Tailoring your resume for the job is a complete waste of time in my experience. It might help for really senior positions in specialized roles but those types of jobs pay upwards of $300k. The vast majority of people will not be applying for those roles. Recruiters spend all of 10 seconds looking at your resume. If you spend even 15 mins tailoring your resume for a specific job, you’re already coming out further behind than when you started.
3.5% unemployment should not be considered “full employment”. Recruiters are way too picky. There should be a shorter supply of people looking to switch jobs, or get their first one, so they can’t skip over perfectly good applicants because of vibes. Why I hate corperate America and why I’m happy i’ll be working at my dad’s small law firm soon.
I saw a sample resume for a article editor which was filled with sensationalist language. One of the points was that the person “conducted audio mixing”. If I read that as an employer, I’d know immediately that this person was bullshitting, or at least lacked authenticity and probably wouldn’t know what the heck they were doing.
Jeff, I like you. Thank you for speaking clearly, and slowly more than anything. Personally, seeing you as a grown man, your GPA isn’t necessary. I saw resumes where people are using social media icons for their mobile, email addresses, and LinkedIn profile. I was looking for articles on how to find and insert logos when I found you. What’s your thought on using those in a very simple format? PS….just looked at the resume format Jeff Shared with us, and at my age, I would never use “call me, email me” but I wanted to ask if you guys find the phone, LinkedIn, and email icons to be professional? I also just spoke with two recruiters for fortune 500 companies, and they definitely said for me not to use the “call me, email me.” and reminded me to keep it classy, and professional. I give up!!
My way to find remote jobs: 1 – Spend hours on a resume; 2 – Spend more hours writing everything on your resume again, as the platform does not read automatically; 3 – Spend hours and hours answering questionnaires, which should evaluate my technical skills; 4 – Attend a non-technical assessment call; 5 – Attend a technical evaluation call; 6 – Attend a technical evaluation call with the customer; 7 – Receive a shitty offer, because you are obliged to inform your current income in your registration and the client thinks that you are homeless and need the job desperately.
When I got out of prison I decided to put my felony convictions on my resume so that I didn’t waste time interviewing with companies for which that would be an automatic disqualification. You know what I learned from that? A lot of interviewers don’t even read the resumes they solicit. I had several interviews, two of them quite long, for jobs where I eventually found out I couldn’t be hired because I was an ex-offender. That wasted my time and the interviewer’s time. The place that eventually hired me, and where I’ve been working for the past fifteen years, didn’t ask for a resume.
I have come to the conclusion that if you watch 10-15 different experts on resumes, you will get 10-15 disparate ideas on what to include/exclude in a resume. I’ve made a complete circle following advisors who invariable think IT type careers are the center of their universe and rarely think outside a handful of career areas. Biotech skillsets are relevant for MUCH longer than 10 years!
From this article I learned the following: 1. The only thing outdated is the HR department 2. The CV must be written to cater to the equivalent of a toddler deciding to eat scrambled eggs or fries, who then decides for neither. 3. The experience of a person who has been working for more time than most of the recruiter’s lifespan is less valuable than the recruiter’s opinion. 4. Applying with a personalized CV sounds good on paper, it doesn’t work when there are 600+ other applicants. A customized CV is not even ATS-compliant and it will be buried, no matter how well it is written. I tested it multiple times. 5. What is the second-best written resume costs $1800. Thanks.
I’m thinking if I should write a resume that says something like “We both know the chances of you reading this specific resume is pretty slim. IF you do, here is a QR code to my work portfolio, which I hope will prove more of my skillset than this piece of paper can do. Otherwise, I really look forward to hearing from you, I am clean, diligent and only bite people the first tuesday of every third month, IF I happen to be really angry that day. Thank you for listening.”
Great article, Don! Further thoughts: 1) Arial is a VERY dated font. Don’t use it. Calibri is more up to date and very readable. Avoid fancy fonts. 2) As for resume keywords, use those found in the job advertisement itself. The resume harvesting software will pluck that resume out. The recruiter may also be drawn closer to your resume than others. For example, if the advertisement reads, “Banking IT specialist” make sure that phrase appears under your Skills section. Everything else sounds great. I learned a lot. Thanks!!
So many companies are doing everything but actually hiring. They are building resume banks, helping HR look busy, doing due diligence for public tendering, keeping the market cap of the company up by pretending to grow, or if there actually is a real job opening, looking for THE cheapest candidate. Even the interviews seem to be a kind of pre-qualification, in case that role ever actually appeared.
The weird thing is, I find different recruiters want different things off of your resume. If you were psychic and could read their mind for what they are looking for, you’d have a 1,000 different versions of THIS YEARS resume. If you are looking for the best over all effect and are playing the averages..most of the advice in this article is fine. I use to think that the more you have on your resume the better. But what I am starting to notice, is that when recruiters do interviews with me, they have barely even looked at my resume. And I end up having to go through my resume with them, anyway. You’d be amazed how often they DO ask for older skills. I get the idea that sometimes, even if a skill is now useless, they think your experience with it means that you will actually be better handling skills that are more contemporary. Its a kind of soft skill thing.
I am retired now, but when I applied for a post-military job, I sent in the usual two page resume. They kicked it back and told me they basically just scan the resume and do a keyword search if they need to. They told me the more detailed the better. They wanted education going back to high school including any certifications and special courses. They also wanted a detailed work history going back to high school graduation. I ended up with a 24 page resume. It was a technical job offshore. I did get the job. My personal default font is not Arial or Times New Roman, but 12 pt. Century Schoolbook. For extended reading, I find both of the latter to be less fatiguing than both of the former.
I was a computer contractor for 15 years and as such was constantly looking for my next gig at head hunters. I have heard both sides of the employment detail argument. Different headhunters looking at my same resume, one would say I had too much detail and another would say I had too little. Same with how far back to go. I like to keep my resume to max 2 pages. I have had head hunters complain I went back too far and others not far enough, same resume. You can’t win.
I stopped using an objective statement many years ago. I figured at the time that my object was pretty clear when I applied for a position with a company – that particular job or something like it. I think by putting an objective statement on your resume, you are in effect limiting what that recruiter or hiring manager can envision selecting you for if you are not the best candidate for that particular position you applied for. They might think, “Ok, you weren’t the best candidate for that job but your objective statement does not align with this other position we have available.” And you might very well have been a good fit there and the best candidate but you’ll never know. Also, quite honestly when objective statements are typically used, they are lame boilerplate verbiage and a waste of some valuable real estate on your resume that would be better used. I typically cringe when I read other’s objective statements.
I follow Erica on social media and she actually clarified why the objective statement is outdated. It takes up space, and should be replaced with a candidate summary statement highlighting accomplishments. If you’re a recruiter, what would you rather read? Option 1: I am seeking a job as an IT specialist in the healthcare industry. Option 2: Award-winning IT specialist with 20 years of experience in the healthcare industry. Worked with Fortune 500 companies to fix bottlenecks and save 2% annual budget from department line item. Option 2 is clearly the superior option.