How to write a resume?

A resume is the piece of paperwork needed for you to apply for a job. It summarises your experiences, qualifications and achievements. It is supposed to capture the highlights of your professional academic and career-related milestones. There is no one right way to write a resume. But a resume needs to have a good structure so that it is clear and coherent. It will help if you highlight your qualifications and achievements so that an employer feels like you are worth their time.

The resume structure depends on your background, experience and the job that you are applying for. However, every resume needs to have a few key sections such as previous job experience, academic qualifications and other achievements such as certifications and awards.

These will help entice and engage the reader. The first section is the contact section. Include your full name, your city, state, postal code, and your contact number.

Then you need a professional summary. This is called your professional statement or career profile. This section is used to demonstrate who you are and how you can help. Begin your resume with a professional title. Follow this with three essential skills that the hiring company might be looking for. Then using a few sentences to explain your professional background, expertise and talents make you the right fit for the position you are applying for. Finally, you need to explain how you feel to solve the company’s pain point.

You can add your career highlights, which you can add as a bulleted section, summing up your most significant achievements in your career. Use this to make your employer excited to meet you. 

The second section is a core competencies section. This can include your skills, expertise and knowledge as it relates to the job. This is related to the keywords related to the job advert.

Next, include a work experience section and an education section. You might want to include other areas if you don’t have much job experience, for example, if you are a college freshman, awards, volunteer experiences, languages, special certifications, and technical skills.

The goal of the resume is to make you look like a desirable and potential employee. So get creative and get that message across. Put your most important information and most vital information foremost. 

Build a resume that is readable. Especially to applicant tracking systems. The resume needs to be correctly formatted. Use simple, straightforward, consistent texts and formatting—a readable font size.

Your resume should be tailored to every job you apply to. Study the job posting carefully and use the words used in the outline. This will help match your resume with the job advert.

An additional step to develop an effective resume is to create result-driven achievement statements that are quantifiable. Once you have a perfect structure to your resume, this is the next step. List the results of the tasks you did. Show your results with figures if possible.