If you could
choose between a beautifully tailored outfit designed to fulfil all of your
wildest fashion dreams or a ready-to-wear baggy tee from some random
retailer, which would you pick? That’s a rhetorical question. You’d
obviously want that tailored outfit. Did I mention it comes with bespoke
pockets? Well, it does.
In the age of
personalization, we want everything to be made to fit us. So, why would we
expect a hiring manager to want anything different when they get a stack of resumes
in response to a job offer? See here’s the rub. Whenever a hiring
manager posts a job offer, they receive 250+ other resumes on average in
response. From that pile, they need to find the one diamond that shines
brighter than all the others.
How
can you expect your resume to shine bright like a diamond (yes, I just quoted
Rihanna) if you send in a generic resume that you didn’t tailor to the job
offer? You can’t. Plain and simple. I know, you probably think that
tailoring a resume is a difficult and time-consuming process. Here’s what
I have to say to you – no, no it is not. Not if you make a good use of the
infographic by Uptowork – Your
Resume Builder below and use the following tips:
Starting
off on the right foot: a master resume
You probably
don’t realize it, but there’s a good chance you already have the makings of a
master resume. Do you have a working resume that you want to revamp?
That’s almost the same thing as a master resume. All you need to do is add
all of your work experience, skills, and
information. Everything. Once you’ve done that, you have a document
from which you can pick and choose the most relevant skills and experience for
your tailored resume. Having everything in one place, to begin with, will
make things easier when you start to tailor your new resume.
Here’s
what recruiters really want to see
Because hiring
managers get flooded with so many resumes, they will only spend an average of
six seconds scanning each one for relevance. So, what is it that they are
they trying to find? Keywords. They are scanning your resume to find
the skills and experience they asked for in the job description. So, where
is the best place to start looking for those keywords? That’s right! In
the job description.
Grab your
highlighter or trusty pen and mark all of the skills and required experience
you can find. If you are applying for a job online, adding keywords to
your resume is even more crucial. When you send a resume through an online
application, it is likely that it will go through an Applicant Tracking System
(ATS). That means that your resume is going to be read by R2D2 first. The
program is designed to scan your resume for keywords that match those from the
job description. If your resume is a good match, it will go higher on the
recruiter’s list of relevant resumes, and that’s where you want to be.
Do keep in mind
that these systems are sophisticated enough to know if you’ve used the keyword
within a proper context or if you’ve simply stacked your resume full of keyword
gibberish.
So, what do you
do once you’ve found all of the keywords?
4 tips for
tailoring your resume
Now that you have
a list of skills recruiters want, and a master resume full of skills that you
have, it’s time to match them. I’d like to bring to your attention the
fact that skills can fall under a few different categories:
Job-related Skills
These are the
skills that are mandatory for you to have to do the job. In that respect, most
of the skills on the job description will fall under this category.
Example:
Burger-flipping
Transferable Skills
These are key
skills that you can take with you from one job to another. There will probably
be quite a few transferable skills listed in the job description as well.
Example:
Microsoft excel
Adaptive Skills
These are skills
that you carry with you for survival. Often, they are skills that you develop
on your own and use in regular, everyday life.
Example:
integrity
Tip 1
Have a look at
the job description and try to find the job-related skills first. What skills
can you find that you must have? Your resume should include all of the
job-related skills that you have that match those required in the job
description. You should write them in as close to the top of your resume as
possible, and they should be first in line in your skills section.
Tip 2
To draw attention
to the skills you find most important or relevant, you should demonstrate how
you’ve used these skills in the past. Use numbers and achievements to
illustrate your use of these skills. Using facts and figures has two
benefits. First, it draws the eye of the recruiter, making it easier for the
recruiter to locate skills on your resume. Second, it allows the recruiter to
imagine that you will provide them with the same results.
Here’s how it
works:
Instead of
writing: “Management Skills”
Write:
“Management of Large Teams (100+ people)”
For your
experience section, instead of writing: “Responsible for increasing sales and
retaining customers.”
Write: “Increased
quarterly sales by 10% over the course of two years, and increased customer
retention by managing the launch of a new customer loyalty scheme in 2014.”
Tip 3
Now, look at the
remaining skills and find those that are transferable.
These are the
“nice to have skills” that are easy for you to have, as they are usually picked
up in past jobs. If you have any of them, add them to your experience and
skills section where relevant.
Microsoft Excel
should simply go in your skills section.
Remember to add
details:
Microsoft Excel
(proficient with macros and pivot tables)
Transferable
skills that you feel strongly about can go in your experience section. You can
also add other valuable transferable skills that you have that the job offer
did not mention. Transferable skills are always relevant.
Tip 4
You can add
adaptive skills throughout your resume to describe yourself. For example, you
can start your resume summary off with an adaptive skill as an introductory
adjective.
Highly Ambitious
Marketing Manager
OR
Detail-oriented
Sales Associate
Now, don’t
trip at the finish line: tailor your cover letter
You need to
tailor your cover letter to the job description as well. Yes, you still need a
cover letter. And in most cases, recruiters will scan them in the same way
they will scan your resume. They will look for keywords from the job
description. So, add them where relevant.
One more
quick trick for you…
Here’s a nice
trick – drop your resume into a cloud generator.
It will help you physically see whether or not you’ve done a thorough job
tailoring your resume. That’s because you will be able to see which words
are most prominent. If the words that appear are not skills or keywords,
reconsider a brief rewrite to make these words show up more often across your
resume.
After using a
cloud generator, go to Jobscan.
Here you will be able to drop both your resume and your job offer into an ATS
simulator. Jobscan will show you if your resume can make it through ATS,
plus it will show you how well you tailored your resume. So, it’s a win-win
even if you don’t need to get your resume through ATS.
Key
takeaway
Resume tailoring
is by far one of the most important things you can do to show a recruiter that
you care and that you are the person who is most fit for the job. And you
should be tailoring every resume you send in response to every job offer every
time. I can’t stress that enough. While it may seem like common sense, the
steps above should at least streamline the process for you. Happy tailoring!
About the author: Natalie Severt is a writer for Uptowork,
the resume builders.
Source: http://theundercoverrecruiter.com/
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