The job hunt can be a grueling process, and putting together a good resume is always more work than it seems like it should be. Luckily we’ve got some tips for when you’re hard at work on your resume at our homes for rent in Owasso. These tips can help you craft a compelling resume that has the best chance of pushing you through to the next steps of a hiring process. 

Do you know a friend or neighbor in our community of Tulsa homes for rent who is looking for a job? Help them out by sharing this post with them once you’re done reading! Now let’s jump right into our resume writing tips!

Look Through Lots of Examples

We’re about to give you a lot of great tips and recommendations, but seeing actual resume examples is going to help put all our advice into context. You can find plenty of resume examples online broken down by industry, type of position, or even type of applicant (e.g. “resume examples for graphic designers looking for agency work”) and we recommend perusing a handful of them before you sit down to create your own resume. 

Put the Most Relevant Info at the Top

Have a section at the top that summarizes some of your relevant experience, which might include past positions, volunteer work, and major projects. Give a snapshot of the elements you most want to highlight on your resume and make sure it paints a picture of why you’d be a great fit for the particular job you’re applying for.

Order your resume from most to least relevant. A skills section near the top may be an efficient way to highlight some of the most relevant skills you’ve learned from your various experiences. Education details (e.g. degree and GPA) and academic awards (e.g. Dean’s List and honor societies) may be worth mentioning, but may be better included toward the bottom.

Make Sure Your Resume Reflects the Job Description

You should create a resume master document that acts as a baseline for each position you apply to, but whenever you send a resume as part of an application, create a version of your generic resume that resonates specifically with the position you’re applying for. Take note of keywords the job description uses, skills required, and qualities sought in an applicant and be sure to mention those throughout your resume, especially near the top of the document.

This tactic serves two functions. First, many resumes go through scanning software before they ever make it to a hiring manager, and these programs scan for keywords to make sure your resume is indeed relevant to the job you’re applying for. Second, once your resume gets in front of a hiring manager, this person will be in the position of looking through dozens of applications, so you want to make sure you’ve made it easy for them to see at a glance that your application is worth taking a closer look at. If your resume doesn’t use keywords that the hiring manager is looking for, that person could easily overlook your potential, even if you’re the perfect fit for the position.

Keep It Concise

Resumes should typically be the length of one side of an 8.5”x11” page, and never more than a single page, front and back. If you’re struggling to fit everything into a single page, chances are you’re including a lot of irrelevant details that the person reviewing your resume won’t actually care about. The presence of irrelevant info also dilutes the focus on more relevant skills, which may get lost in the deluge of information you’re providing. Keep resumes short and sweet and hiring managers will find it that much easier to tell whether you’re worth reaching out to for a follow-up.

Use Active Verbs

When listing responsibilities for previous jobs, summarizing your skills, or discussing your achievements, use as many active verbs as possible. Make sure they’re descriptive, too, rather than vague. For example, “Scheduled and led weekly meetings of 15-20 members” is better than just listing “weekly meetings”  or “held weekly meetings” as a responsibility. The more active verbs you can incorporate (without it sounding forced), the more you’ll give the impression that you are capable, hard-working, and experienced.

Quantify When Possible

In a similar vein, quantify your experience or achievements wherever possible. Sometimes you may not have the information required to quantify a job responsibility (e.g. you may not know how quickly you resolved tech issues on average when you worked at your tech support job), but when you do, it helps make your experience that much more concrete to the person reading your resume. When you can, quantify the hours of relevant coursework you took, the number of employees on a team you managed, or the number of participants in a study you conducted. 

Proofread, Proofread, Proofread

We all make mistakes, but nothing suggests unprofessionalism and carelessness to an employer more quickly than typos in your application materials. Do your absolute best to proofread your resume and ensure that there are no spelling, grammar, or formatting errors. Read over it several times, have a friend read over it, and of course, run it through a spell check at some point before submitting it.

That’s all of our top resume writing tips! If you found this post helpful, be sure to bookmark our blog page for easy access to future posts. Before long we’ll have another blog post up, but in the meantime, make sure you’re following Legacy Living on Facebook so you never miss our special events, promotions, and community updates!