The four Musts in writing your own resume

Face it! Job-hunting is one of the most effort-intensive tasks in anyone’s life. One must do a lot of preliminary work to secure a job, be it before applying for a job or attending an interview.

One of the very first task one must do before commencing job-hunting is to come out with a best possible resume. More and more people have chosen to go with an expert in resume writing, because if you don’t, you just have to make sure your resume is at least as good as your job competitors’ professionally written resume, if not better. If hiring an expert is not a financially viable option for you, you can still embark on the resume-crafting journey on your own, with maximised successes! One major thing a job seeker must is to make sure their resume is in good format, and the content is appealing.

Below are the four musts to make your resume content attractive and appealing:


1. Address the job ad criteria

I can’t stress enough on how important it is to address how you meet the criteria set out by hiring managers. According to my experience, a lot of applicants simply did not have this in their resumes, then one would thought what’s the point of setting out these criteria while applicants did not even try to meet them.

One major reason people didn’t address to the criteria is because their resumes are not customised for each job application. Most people adopt the straight-forward and easy path to write a generic and template-based resume, in the hope to secure multiple job interviews by sending their resumes out to hundreds of job ads. Therefore, one must customise his or her resumes to suit different job ad in order to stand out from the crowd. And hiring managers normally prefer those who make an obvious effort to stand out from the crowd, which leads to high probability of being offered an interview.


2. Numbers Matter! Quantify your work.

Numbers are great to represent the amount of work you do, or the degree of successfulness in your career. Any kind of performance measurement system in the business world involves numbers. Be creative in putting numbers in your resume, quantify every statements in your resume whenever possible. Don’t think you can’t quantify your job, some examples following:

Developed and managed operational budget up to 20 million

Account management with 4 major customer accounts

Inventory management of more than 500 SKU

Management reporting of 2 daily, 5 weekly and 2 monthly reports

Technical CAD drawing, on average 2 drawings per day each account for 2 hours work


3. References

I have seen a lot of “References available upon request”.

While many hiring managers are not against this at all, the best choice would still to include at least two references in. Eventually prospective candidates would nee to provide references, so why not do the hiring managers a favour to include them in the first place. This will in fact demonstrate your confidence and removes any sceptical views by hiring managers.

People might wonder why an applicant didn’t include references in the first place, was it because the applicant knows they are not getting positive references? Therefore, references could be used as a tool to demonstrate your confidence.

If you are a graduate who doesn’t have any work experience, references from peers will do the job well. A written references is also a powerful tool to showcase in the interview.

4. Accomplishments or achievements

Instead of being bombarded with a question like “Show me what you have done! Not tell me what you can do!” why not turn the table around and say “I can show you what I have achieved/accomplished while others can only tell you a story of what they think they can do.”

How does it sound? It demonstrates a sense of total confidence and perfect impression. Create and present a visible picture to hiring managers, allow them to know what they can expect from you! Anyone can incorporate this into their resumes by putting in their career achievements and/or academic accomplishments. Stick to the rule 1: “Address job ad criteria”, try to demonstrate and incorporate the most relevant achievements/accomplishments.

In conclusion, adhere to the above four rules and you are on your way to maximise the marketing effect of your very own brand! If you have any comment or feedback please feel free to email us at [e-mail] or visit http://www.personalbrandresumes.com.au