The Components of a Great Resume

In this lesson we will cover five topics with an assignment at the end. Please read through ALL the topics before taking any actions on your resume.

Resumes are used to make a favorable impression on a prospective employer. Your resume is often the first impression a potential employer has of you. For this reason, it is often referred to as one of the most crucial steps taken during a job search.

On average, a recruiter or internal hiring manager receives 100+ resumes for each role they post. Some studies have shown that the average time a recruiter or hiring manager reviews a resume is six seconds, I repeat, SIX SECONDS! Certainly not a lot of time.

As a former corporate recruiter, I would regularly reject candidates who had even the tiniest typo. Why? Because it showed a lack of attention to detail and with so many more potential candidates to look through, a recruiter is not going to take the time to review a resume with typos. It is always a hunt for the best – that is the job of the recruiter. Recruiters also regularly reject candidates who have any of the following: formatting issues, blank second pages, misspelled words, bullets lacking detail, dates of employment that do not make sense, hyperlinks that lead nowhere and unprofessional email addresses. Football16@gmail.com might have looked good years ago, but it’s time for a grown up email address! I bristle when I see people still using hotmail or yahoo.com. Gmail, Outlook or your school’s email (.edu) are all better choices.

So let’s say you do not have any of the problems on your resume listed above. What else is a recruiter looking for in such a short amount of time? The answer: KEYWORDS that MATCH THE JOB REQUIREMENTS. Due to the high number of applicants a recruiter needs to go through, they need to scan resumes quickly for key skills and experience. Therefore customizing your resume to include the keywords highlighted on the job description every time you apply is key to being seen as a potential match.

It is likely you created a resume while you were still in college and updated it to include a bit more info after you graduated or if you are still in school, you are using the resume you created as a freshman or sophomore. I have many clients who use this patched together resume when applying to jobs and internships without giving much thought to actually connecting the resume content to the actual types of jobs or internships they are seeking. Your resume may look great. Maybe you sought out the guidance of your career center, however, if you resume is not highlighting the specific skills and experience required for a particular job, it is not a resume that will open any doors.

Now let’s move on to the first topic in this lesson: Targeting Your Resume