- What This Article Covers
- Finding the
perfect resume - Step One: Gathering Your Information
- The Resume Builder That Will Help You Stand Out
- It's All in the Format
- Styling
Your Resume - Ordering Sections for
Your Resume - It's About the Content
- Where to start?
- You Need More Than One Resume...Sorry
- Which Version is Best for You
- Keeping Track
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Last Updated on February 14, 2025
Recruiters get hundreds of resumes and spend an average of 6 seconds deciding whether to read the entire resume. If
What This Article Covers
- How Recruiters Evaluate Resumes: Learn why recruiters spend only a few seconds reviewing resumes and what makes yours stand out.
- Resume Formatting and Design: Understand the importance of presentation, layout, and avoiding common design mistakes.
- Essential Resume Sections: Discover the must-have sections, including skills, education, work history, and achievements.
- Creating a Keyword-Optimized Resume: Find out how to use relevant industry keywords to get past applicant tracking systems (ATS).
- Choosing the Right Resume Format: Learn about chronological, functional, hybrid, and targeted resume formats and when to use them.
- How to Showcase Relevant Experience: Explore best practices for highlighting work history, skills, and achievements to match job descriptions.
- Building a Resume with No Experience: Get tips for crafting a strong resume if you’re a recent graduate or changing careers.
- Why You Need Multiple Resumes: Understand the benefits of tailoring
your resume for different industries, roles, or career changes.
Finding the perfect resume
Recruiters are tasked with finding the
Recruiters eliminate resumes based on content and appearance. If they are poorly formatted, too short, or really ugly, content almost doesn’t matter.
Likewise, any resume with spelling or grammatical errors or that was not an exact fit will be eliminated.
By the end of the process, recruiters have only a handful of candidates. Was it possible that they missed the most qualified person because they eliminated all the ugly resumes?
Absolutely. That’s why presentation, format, and content are all equally important.
You’ve probably heard hundreds of times that your resume is the most important document in your
There are five simple steps to creating the perfect resume. Let’s get started.
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Step One: Gathering Your Information
As with all successful endeavors, thoughtful planning will make for a great resume. Take the time to collect all of the content for
A Summary of Your Skills and Objective
Make a list of all of your skills. This includes computer skills and other skills related to your industry (like accounting Pronouncements, medical procedures, etc.). Your skills list should include your hard skills (skills you can teach) and your soft skills (interpersonal skills).
List as many skills as you can think of. The list can be adjusted as needed when you build your resume. Where you put your skills section on
Education
You should gather the key facts about your education (especially if you have an advanced degree). List the name of the university/college, degree program, years attended, and any honors (such as Dean’s List).
Other key facts may be appropriate, such as GPA, clubs and extracurricular activities, special courses, awards, and other important facts that will help
If you’ve not yet finished your degree, you should still put it on
This comprehensive guide offers a wealth of resources for job seekers, including hundreds of sample resumes and cover letters that have been successful in landing interviews and job offers.
Work history
Your work history is the “meat” of
Achievements
This is mentioned above in the Work History section but the topic deserves some special focus.
Extracurricular Activities and Hobbies
Employers want to know what you do in your spare time. This topic spans both what you did during your
The Resume Builder That Will Help You Stand Out
There’s nothing worse than having an incomplete resume or a resume full of mistakes. Recruiters look for candidates with professional resumes that they have proofed, attractive, and up-to-date. This resume builder – ResumeBuilderPro provides expert tools to help proofread your resume. Also, the resume builder has pre-written phrases that you can use if you’re unsure of the terminology needed within the industry or position for which you’re applying. You can avoid common mistakes. You can be sure that you can do so with confidence that no errors will be detected when submitting
It’s All in the Format
Several years ago, a friend of mine was out of work due to the the company he worked for going bankrupt. He had tons of experience and felt he would quickly land another job. One of the things that he was particularly proud of was his resume. He thought that he had the best format, amazing content, and all of the hot keywords to get the attention of the right people. Using a resume maker can also help with this.
You know what? He was wrong.
Working with an executive recruiter who helped him redraft his resume over a very painful four days, my friend wound up with an amazing resume. An important lesson to be learned: have an open mind and listen to the people who are out there every day.
You’ve collected all of the information needed to put
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Sections
Contact Information – Pretty obvious – Your name, address, telephone number and
Your Headline – Take a look at – How to Write a Resume Headline for tips on adding a title to
Objective -Your career goal and what you want out of a job – Tailor Your Resume Objective
Skills – What are you good at, and why should someone hire you? You should list the skills that will help market your strengths. Top Skills You Need On Your Resume
Work History / Experience – This is where you will list the work history you collected from Lesson 1. Take a look at some formats – Resume Experience Section Example
Your resume (otherwise on the bottom). In terms of what you will list –
- Degree (BS, BA, AA, MBA, etc.)
- Major (Finance, Economics, History, etc.)
- Year graduated (or expected graduation date)
- Name of the School
- Location
- GPA (depends on how well you did and when you graduated)
- Honors (Dean’s List, Honor Society, etc.)
Types of formats
There are tons of resume formats. Here are some of the most popular.
Chronological – This format is exactly what the name suggests – listing your experience and history in reverse chronological order – Sample Chronological Resume
Functional – This format highlights your skills and experience – Sample Functional Resume
Hybrid – Sometimes called a combination resume, this format lists your skills and experience followed by your work history – Sample Combination Resume
Targeted resume – This format is generally used when you are applying for a specific job or role – Targeted Resume Sample
Styling Your Resume
I remember when my son got his first complicated Lego set. It was one of those really large boxes of Legos, and I’m sure it was some type of spaceship.
He wanted me to help him put it together, so we decided to do it in pieces. You know how it is with Legos: You have a picture of the “finished” product but no real set of instructions.
Many of the pieces look the same when you look at a picture of them, and it’s not until you have half of the thing built that you realize the last piece that you need was used somewhere else. Now, you have to take the whole thing apart to get to the piece you need.
Putting a resume together is much the same. You have a picture of the finished product (in the case, the format), and all of the pieces, but no real step-by-step instructions for putting the whole thing together. Lesson 3 is all about putting the pieces of
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Font & Type
You don’t want to use any font or type that will make
Spacing & Margins
Margins of 1/2 inch to 1 inch are fine generally. Use single spacing with a blank line between sections.
Videos Resumes versus Print Resumes
Visual resumes have been around for a while. They’ve not grown in popularity as expected, but they are still used and have a purpose. Typed resumes are rarely exciting, so you will surely be remembered if you send a video resume.
If you take the time to make a video, there’s a good chance they will watch it. A video resume is more interesting and unusual, which will set you apart from the crowd.
Ordering Sections for Your Resume
Contact Information
This is the easy part, and it should be easy to find. Your contact information always goes at the top of
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Skills
What are you good at, and why should someone hire you? You should list the skills that will help market your strengths—figuring out which of those skills you should include can be challenging. Start by identifying two of the biggest (and proudest) projects you’ve worked on. Then, think about the biggest challenges you faced during those projects.
What did you have to do to overcome those challenges? What steps did you take to overcome those obstacles?
Did you write those down? Good, because those are the skills you need to highlight. Moving on.
Work History
The standard method of organizing your work history on a resume is in reverse chronological order. This means that your first listing should be your current or most recent job. Then, include other jobs going backward in order.
Strong verbs are the best way to bring life to your past work experience. If you can, include metrics such as sales numbers, employees managed, etc.
How far back should you go? You don’t need to go back in time for over 15 years. The 2 years you spent clearing tables at 20 isn’t going to help you land a copying writing job at 35.
Put it Together
Put all of your sections together, and you are set to go.
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It’s About the Content
In today’s competitive job market, having the right resume content is essential to grabbing attention and securing interviews. A well-optimized resume with relevant keywords, key skills, and industry-specific experience increases your chances of passing applicant tracking systems (ATS) and impressing
Keywords
Do you need keywords? Absolutely. Keywords help demonstrate your level of experience and accomplishments.
Hiring managers will recognize industry-specific keywords to help get an interview. Additionally, many
The most comprehensive reference of its kind, this powerful resume-writing resource gives readers instant access to 2,500 indispensable keywords germane to 300 careers in nine employment categories
Where to start?
- Review job listings for your title/position and make a list of keywords used
- Review resume samples for your industry for keywords
- Visit trade industry sites for your field
- The following links should help you find and leverage the best keywords for your career and resume.
Relevant Skills
You won’t get an interview if you don’t have relevant skills, even if you have relevant experience. Of course, the skills depend on your field, but looking at examples in your industry and other industries is worthwhile.
Soft skills are just as important as professional skills – like thinking analytically and communicating with
Relevant Experience
This, of course, is your job experience demonstrating that you have worked in similar roles. If, for example, you are applying for a job as a bookkeeper, you would list prior experience and highlight accounting and bookkeeping responsibilities in each job.
The best approach is to:
- Create a draft document and list out your job experience with an employer
- Segregate relevant jobs/responsibilities from other jobs/responsibilities
- Create a list of responsibilities by an employer
- Create a list of accomplishments by an employer
- Take the information gathered above and create your relevant experience section.
I’m a big believer in “follow by example,” and it’s usually easier to follow something that’s been done before to create your document.
Resume review, cover letters and interview preparation. Learn about the critical mistakes you may be making in your resume and cover letters. Find out how to fix it and start getting job interviews.
No Experience
We haven’t covered how to construct a resume for someone without experience. Maybe you’ve just graduated from school or are changing industries. This is, of course, more difficult, and the focus should be on entry-level jobs. There are many things you can do:
- Include jobs you held while in school (even if not relevant)
- Include volunteer work you’ve done
- Include any internships
- Activities while in
college (sports, clubs, etc.) - Special training and certification
You Need More Than One Resume…Sorry
Have you ever had a Recruiter call you about a position that would be ideal for you, and although you have the experience,
Or maybe you’ve worked in several industries and want to focus on one industry.
While one resume version, what I call a “general” or “generic” resume, works well for some people, many people should have multiple versions.
You may need (and should have) multiple resume versions for many reasons. Remember, too much of a good thing might be too much. Balance how many resumes you need with where you will get the most value.
Multiple Industries
Maybe you’ve worked in several different industries but in similar roles. Let’s say, for example, you are an accountant who worked at an aircraft manufacturer but also worked at an automobile manufacturer. You’ve decided to find a new job but want to focus on aircraft manufacturing.
Much more than a how-to guide, the roadmaps, prompts, inner-directed questions, and self-assessment tools will help you discover what most excites you professionally and how to set worthwhile career goals.
New Industry
Using the example from above, perhaps you would like to work for a company that manufactures satellites. You need to re-write
Different Roles
Let’s say you have a lot of experience but have worked in different roles in your career. While you would be open to any of these roles in a new company, you may need resume versions focusing on one of these roles.
Career Change
Maybe you want to do something completely different than prior jobs. Maybe you’ve just graduated with a new (but different) degree/training. Whatever the reason, you need to have a version of
Which Version is Best for You
There are several types of versions you can have, depending on your needs and the purpose:
What You Do
Focusing on the type of role/position you want as your new job drives the focus of this resume. If you have worked in marketing and sales but want to focus on the marketing side, then
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Where You Work
Maybe it’s not about what you do but where you do it (your industry). In that case, you will want
Keeping Track
Okay, you’ve got these great multiple resumes. Now, you just need to keep track of which one you’ve sent to whom. If you read our post on using Indeed.com, you will know that most sites allow you to upload
A few will allow you to upload multiple documents and resumes. Most of these are company career sites, not search engines. There are a few platforms like Huntr, or you can use a good old-fashioned spreadsheet, like the free Google Docs spreadsheet app.
If you're looking for help in reviewing and updating your resume, we've created a list of our resume review and resume writing partners. Many will provide a free review of your resume.
