Create a Killer Resume and Cover Letter

20 Quick Fixes to Improve Your Resume and Land Interviews

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Your resume is your first touchpoint with the prospective employer. Therefore, it should clearly describe your work history and emphasize your professional strengths. If you want an efficient resume that complies with all modern rules of resume writing, read below. We have prepared practical tips that you’ll find useful when you need to update a resume quickly and make the best impression.

If you would like to give your resume a truly professional appearance, consider hiring professional resume services online, for example, resume editing services. The writer from this writing company can write your resume from scratch or help with checking it in 24 hours. All writers are professionals with the right credentials and experience with resumes who are capable of describing you as the best candidate for employers.

20 steps to excellent resume editing

1. Use a modern font

Change the traditional Times New Roman or Calibri to Arial, Helvetica, or Verdana. A plain readable font will not affect the content of the resume but will add points in the eyes of the hiring manager.

2. Choose the right document format

Save the document in PDF or DOC. These file types not only open correctly on most devices and in browsers but also preserve the formatting. Change the file name so that it looks like “Olivia McCarthey_Account Manager”.

3. Remove the “References available upon request”

This statement is simply out of date. The modern strategy is to prepare your references on a separate sheet of paper and provide it to an employer when they request them.

4. Use your home address strategically

If you plan to relocate, it’s better to use a local address. Otherwise, the hiring manager might reject a candidate from another city or state. If you browse jobs in your area, using a full home address is not necessary. A city and zip will suffice.

Your resume is your first touchpoint with the prospective employer. Therefore, it should clearly describe your work history and emphasize your professional strengths.Click To Tweet

Add links to your LinkedIn profile, an online website or portfolio, or GitHub (if you’re a programmer). Don’t include links to your private social media pages, but be sure to clean up the profiles. Today, recruiters form the first impression based on what they’ve found about the candidate in social networks.

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6. Remove the cliché phrases

Clean up your resume from fluff that sounds like “I’m a go-getter and a team player who always exceed expectations”. The #1 resume rule is ‘show, don’t tell’. If you want to describe yourself as a team player, tell about projects you worked on in a team and the results you’ve achieved.

7. Delete personal information

Any private information is a big no-no for the professional US resume. Remove such details as age, marital status, religion, ethnicity, and political affiliation. Photo is not necessary either (unless you’re applying for a public-facing position where your appearance matters).

8. Remove high school details and graduation date

If you have a college degree, don’t list any information about your high school. And if you graduated from college or university more than 5 years ago, you can delete the graduation date either. At this point, your experience is more valuable for an employer than education.

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9. Add the extra space between sections

Nobody likes reading cluttered documents. Adding more blank space between the sections, as well as between jobs, degrees, etc., will make the document easier and more pleasant to read.

10. Check the resume for mistakes

Hiring managers don’t like typos and poor grammar. Proofread the resume manually or use an online spell checker to fix minor mistakes and typos. This simple step will help you make a far better impression on any employer.

11. Upgrade your list of skills

Add skills that you have recently acquired, either through education or in the workplace. At the same time, remove outdated ones, such as MS Word, the Internet, or Windows 98.

12. Group skills by subcategories

If you’re an expert in multiple areas, group your skills by industry or field of knowledge for better readability. For example, you might use categories like ‘Programming languages’, ‘Accounting skills’, ‘Languages’, etc.

13. Check the formatting for consistency

Make sure you’re using the same type of formatting for headings, lists, and job titles. In other words, if you’ve decided to use all caps for company names, do it throughout the document to keep the text neat and comfortable to read.

14. Be careful with contractions and abbreviations

Some of them might not be familiar to the reader. Use full words and decipher the abbreviations (or use both abbreviated and full versions of terms) to avoid confusion.

15. Use eye-catching yet professional design

Use no more than 1-2 colors in a resume to structure the document or highlight the most important information. If you apply for a creative role, i.e. graphic designer or social media marketer, you might use a resume infographic or simply use a brighter resume template.

16. Paraphrase the job descriptions

Whenever possible, focus not on what you did, but on the outcome of your work. Instead of ‘Answered calls and emails from customers’ say ‘Handled 30+ inbound calls and resolved customer complaints via email with 95% success rate” – it says much more about you as a professional!

17. Leave out your early work history

It’s not necessary to list each job you’ve ever held. Experienced professionals can remove the jobs they had over 10 years ago. Not only this will clean up the resume of unnecessary information but also will make the document shorter.

18. Cut down the list of job duties

Hiring managers and resume writers recommend that you describe no more than 6-7 responsibilities and achievements for each of your past positions. Focus on responsibilities that are most relevant to the position you’re trying to get.

19. Replace words with numbers

Resume length is limited so this piece of advice will be of service. Write not “Managed twenty software developers across two departments” but “Managed 20 software developers in 2 departments”. Numbers are easier to read than words, and this trick saves space.

20. Ask for an outside opinion

Show your resume to some hiring managers or professionals of resume writing services. People who work with resumes daily can review yours and share some valuable tips for improving your resume. Moreover, an experienced resume writer can incorporate all the needed improvements for you and help you stand out.

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