Crafting a resume is a daunting task, and it always has been. How do you highlight a lifetime of experience and tons of skills in a brief summary that someone will only dedicate 11 seconds to once they see it? How do you make your best skills stand out and capture their attention before they move on to the next one?
Those questions have always been a huge part of crafting a resume, but now, there are even more things to consider.
Almost every business requires you to craft an electronic resume and turn it in via the Internet. That’s because they can save a lot of time and resources by putting that resume through an Applicant Tracking Systems, and every resume that isn’t made perfectly will just get deleted before a real person even looks at it.
With both the traditional challenges of applying for a job and the new-age threat of screening software throwing your resume away, crafting your electronic resume perfectly has never been more important.
Here are 10 electronic resume tips for how to create an e-resume that handles those issues.
1: Consider Both Readers
First and foremost, you’re not crafting your resume just to impress a hiring manager. Before the hiring manager even knows your application exists, it has to go through an Applicant Tracking System that filters out all the resumes that are likely to be wastes of time.
During that process, even if you’re extremely qualified, the ATS can get rid of your resume.
It’s best to look at the ATS as a target audience of its own. Instead of crafting your resume strictly for the hiring manager and how a human reads through brief summaries like resumes, you also have to consider the dramatically different requirements the screening software will have while it’s “reading” your resume.
Keeping both of these “readers” in mind while you craft your electronic resume will remove a lot of the hassle later when you go to optimize it.
2: Focus on Highlighting Your Strongest Relevant Skills
This is a basic tip, but it can do wonders when it comes to landing you an interview. Your skills and what you bring to the table are likely going to be what lands you the job. As such, you want to focus a lot of your effort on making sure your strongest relevant skills are put at the forefront of your resume. They should stand out.
You can do this with keywords that we’ll mention shortly, but you also need to ensure that you use the right format to make sure your skills are the first things seen, and you want to list the ones relevant to the job requirements first.
If you need help finding key strengths and skills, take Innate’s resume quiz which is designed to help you identify your top strengths and how to promote them on your resume.
3: Keywords
Keywords are used by practically everything in the digital sphere. Search engines, social media, and of course, ATS, all use keywords to help locate key bits of information quickly.
ATS uses keywords to quickly identify if you have the right qualifications for the job listed in your resume.
As such, you’ll want to look for keywords in the original job description and use those throughout your resume whenever possible. Word your skills the same way as the job description, work job requirements into descriptions, etc.
4: Use Microsoft Word
One of the most important parts of figuring out how to create an electronic resume is to determine the tools you’re going to use. While almost every word processor is going to have resume templates, and you can certainly make a decent-looking resume with most options, you have to consider the screening software and what it’s able to read.
Your safest bet is always going to be Word. Specifically, you want to use its default Docx format for your files.
This is the standard across all forms of writing, and it’s guaranteed to work whatever ATS solution your potential new boss is using.
5: Custom Tailor Each Submission
How you present your skills and qualifications will depend on the specific position you are applying for. Just as each company and each job description is slightly different, the way you present yourself should be tailored to suit.
Keywords for different job listings will be different, the relevancy of some skills might differ from position to position, etc.
You don’t need to write a completely new resume for every job you apply to, but you do need to reopen your resume and tweak things to match what you’re applying to for EVERY submission.
6: Take Advantage of Proven Templates
This is one of the most important electronic resume tips which often gets overlooked. But there is no need to re-invent the wheel when there are expert resources available who have templates that have been proven to work.
Look for a good template that helps you put the right information in the right places, is clearly and cleanly formatted, and is easy to use. This can help you prevent common mistakes that get great resumes tossed.
7: Target the Right Jobs
This is less of an online resume tip in terms of creating your resume, and more of a tip for applying to the right job, but it will make the resume crafting experience a lot easier.
If you start by targeting jobs that you’re a good match for, optimizing your skills and credentials, while keeping everything honest and relevant to the job, will mostly come down to formatting and choosing keywords.
If you need to find out what type of job you’re best suited for, take our resume test. This tool can help you create a resume that’ll fit both your and your employer’s needs, and lead you to the top!
When you take the reckless approach and apply for anything that sounds good, you have to do a lot more work to make your resume stand out.
8: Proofread
The process between finishing the writing portion and submitting your resume is just as important as writing it properly.
Proofread your electronic resume to ensure you don’t have any typos, missing information, or other issues.
Small problems often cause screening software to toss resumes, and recruiters don’t waste time once they see glaring imperfections.
9: Get a Second Opinion
You know yourself better than anyone, but you can easily miss character traits, skills, or experiences you have that are relevant to a job. Get a close acquaintance to go over your resume with you, and they can help spot those omissions.
This isn’t a professional review, but it can help you remember key information or spot glaring mistakes. It’s even better if you have a friend who works with resumes professionally such as a hiring manager.
10: Get a Free Innate Resume Review
Finally, out of all our electronic resume tips, the most important tip is to take the free resume review.
This is like taking your resume for a test ride to ensure that it will pass the ATS and impress a recruiter. It’s free, and it can help you land your dream job without all the hassle most job seekers are facing.
Research and Stats
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