The views of this article are the perspective of the author and may not be reflective of Confessions of the Professions.
Include These Things On Your Resume
Figuring out what to include on your resume may feel as though it involves a level of mind-reading. You want to make sure you get the job, so you’re trying to figure out what the hiring manager wants to see. While you need to pay attention to the specifics of the job and the field, consider some staples that hiring managers generally want to see on your resume.
Strong Writing Skills
A resume that is littered with grammar and spelling mistakes is likely to make people wonder if you are really a good fit for the company. Many colleges offer writing center services to alums too, so you can go check to find assistance. Also, you can likely find plenty of teachers in the summer who are willing to tutor in resume writing. This element is especially important if you are applying for a job that requires you to produce written materials.
While you want to make sure you’re following the mandates and suggestions of your field, reverse chronological order is pretty standard for a resume. By ordering your degrees and work experience in this way, hiring managers get a stronger sense of whom you are now more readily. Reverse chronological order allows the activities in which you are still engaging, or that you have recently completed, to come to the top.
Action Verbs
Once you procure a new position, you’ll need to show yourself as a person of action. No matter how much sitting or standing you’ll do throughout the day, you want to show that you are a person who gets tasks done. As you are writing your responsibilities for your various positions, make sure that you include action verbs. Tell the hiring manager what you did at your last or current position, not just what the environment of the job was like.
Keep Your Bullet Points in the Same Tense
Switching back and forth between verb tenses does not only show that you lack a solid grasp on grammar, but it is also difficult to read. Choose those action verbs, but make sure they are in the same tense. For example, write “direct corporate sales training” and “collaborate with team leaders” for a current position. Don’t write “training new employees” and “developed a new advertising plan.” Not only are those two different tenses of verbs, but one is in the past tense.
Multilingual Skills
The ability to speak in another language is a valuable skill, especially in a job that requires strong relationships with international entities or with a diverse population of people which may require you to translate documents. If you speak more than one language, you should make that known on your resume. However, don’t lie about it. If your knowledge of Spanish, for example, is fairly limited, you can include the language, but you should know that you speak it at a beginner level.
By the time you get to the skills and abilities section of your resume, you may just want to slap “Microsoft Office” down there and get on with it. However, hiring managers want to see what is different about you. Virtually every candidate is going to have skills with that software suite, so you want to show that what you have is different. You should still include the fact that are you proficient with this suite, or the hiring manager might think that you aren’t.
What to Leave Off
Deciding what to leave off of your resume is difficult, especially because different fields have different opinions. Some say that you don’t need to put your address on there if it’s on a different document, and others say that the objective is obsolete. Still others will say that you should simply say that references are available as opposed to listing them. You can feel confident that leaving off personal interests, such as your hobbies, is a good idea.
Following these tips can help you to impress a hiring manager and to land a position.
