Every interview question is an attempt for a hiring manager to gather as much information about a candidate as possible. However, candidates actually have to make it to the interview before they can answer the “why should we hire you” question hiring managers typically pose.
Before you sell yourself in person, you need to draft an expert-level resume that sets you apart from everyone else. You can do this by leveraging yourself as the best person for the job.
General Resume Rules for All Candidates
Companies receive hundreds of replies for each job posting, and plenty of potential employers will overlook or throw out your resume or cover letter if it doesn’t include the following:
- Required Information: Always include your personal and contact information, qualification, education, work history, experience, relevant skills, and achievements.
- A Standard Resume Structure: Resumes should either be chronological (work-history focused), functional (relevant skills focused), or combination (chronological + functional).
- Relevancy to the Job: Only include relevant skills for jobs you’re applying for. For example, customer service isn’t applicable for an interpersonal coding job.
- Keywords: Candidates now have to bypass applicant tracking systems (ATS). An ATS will judge if you’re hireable based on keyword relevancy, experience, and education.
- Only One Page: Some government jobs will require a multiple-page resume, but the vast majority of positions only require a one-page resume and/or cover letter.
- A Clean Layout: Your resume shouldn’t be difficult to read, contain misspellings, or be structured in an illogical way. Use black-colored Calibri or Georgia for your fonts.
- Recent Work Experience: If there’s a large gap in your resume, your potential employer will want to know why. Fill that gap in with volunteering, schooling, or family care.
- Updated Information: Your resume should include the most up-to-date information regarding your employment. Any discrepancy could lose you the interview.
- References: Your potential employer will ask for references anyway, so it’s better to add them in as a separate document, if possible. Add a cover letter to all job postings.
While keeping your resume structure standard and keyword focused will improve your chances of a hiring manager reading your resume, keeping to these rules won’t guarantee an interview.
How to Craft a Resume Based on Experience
There’s no one-size-fits-all template for a resume, but there is one major message every resume should illustrate: “this is how my skills and performance made my employers happy.” The way to get this point across depends on your experience and years in the job market.
College Graduate Resume
As a recent graduate, you likely haven’t worked in your industry and/or have a skill set that doesn’t directly translate to your field. Here’s a great resume example for your first job that’s bound to get you hired, including essential tips that highlight your skills:
- Put Education First: Your first section should include your education, GPA, and academic honors. If you volunteered in a student society, include that here.
- Put Internships at the Top of Your Experience Section: Put the experience section directly below education. At the top of this section, explain, up to three bullet points, what your roles and duties were over the length of your internship. Focus on tasks that are important in your field. Include job title and the length of your internship.
- Only Add Relevant Job Experience: If you worked throughout college, only add job experience that’s relevant to the position you’re applying for. You can possibly spin your past experience for this position, especially if you had to work during college to survive.
- Your Extracurricular Activities, Skills, and Hobbies Must Tell a Story: Some skills are relevant for all positions, like proficiency in two languages, but a news reporter doesn’t need to know how to wire a house. At the same time, if you volunteered with a home-building charity, employers will want to hear about it. Employers want to see what you value, and that information becomes transparent through volunteer work.
Keep your resume short and sweet. Hiring managers may think you’re lying or stretching the truth if you over-explain. Entry-level jobs only require 1 “job” in your experience section.
Junior-Level Professional Resume
Junior-level candidates typically have 2-5 years of work experience and may or may not be educated. Depending on their industry, they may need close supervision to complete tasks.
- Work Experience First: The top of your resume should only include relevant work experience. If you’ve kept one job over the last five years, put an internship in your second experience slot. Put up to two jobs/internships in this section, so you can expand on your relevant skills and duties. If you add more, you’ll weaken your resume.
- Emphasize Teamwork Skills: At this point in your career, hiring managers want to employ career-oriented team members. You’re proving that you’re willing to move into upper management roles by highlighting your teamwork skills. Use terms like “we” and “our team” when discussing teamwork-based achievements to drive this point home.
- Remove Objective and Professional Summary Sections: The rest of your resume should include your education, volunteer work, and skills. You don’t have enough work experience to warrant a summary, and writing an objective wastes space.
The largest section in your resume should belong to work and internship experience, followed by volunteer work (or activities and organizations). Be brief when describing your skills.
Mid-Level Professional Resume
Mid-level professionals should have a strong background in management and have at least seven years in their prospective field. You can have resumes longer than one page if warranted.
- Put Professional Summary First: Mid-level professionals have amassed quite a few skills in their lifetime. Add a summary at the top to highlight your key expertise.
- Use Strong Keywords for Your Skills: Writing in the active voice and using relevant and strong keywords for your skills will impress human and artificial hiring managers.
- Include Company Descriptions and Numbers: Highlight your past employer’s annual revenue, staffing numbers, and other details that save the hiring manager’s time. Explain how you contributed to the company’s success through numbered figures.
- Elaborate On Your Most Recent Position: Your most recent (or current position) should include the most amount of details, followed by your second most recent.
- Emphasize Your Achievements: It’s okay to show off your achievements, but keep these relevant. Your achievements tell your future employers that you have a passion for your industry. They also showcase your ability to learn and grow.
Your education section shouldn’t include your high school diploma at this point, nor your GPA. You may need to add a certification and organization section if you maintain an active license for your profession. For example, an accountant needs to keep an active CPA to stay employed.
