The first thing that represents you to the employer is your resume,
including your unique skills, significant achievements, and reasons you'll be
the best fit for the position.
Discover here the first 3 things a recruiter looks for in your resume to optimize it to stand out among other candidates and get more interview invitations.
Work Experience
The first thing recruiters think about when they review your resume is,
"Does this candidate have the expertise and capabilities to join us,
perform this job efficiently, and will quickly start adding value to our
strategies?"
The easiest way to determine this is to look at what you have done with
other employers because this shows whether you have some career experience or
not.
Also, make sure that your work history is on the top half of the first
page so that it can be found quickly.
Your name and contact information and a one-paragraph professional
overview statement are the only parts you can put before your job experiences.
Move straight into your job experience after this.
Career Progression
This career progression involves everything that adds to your career
development, starting from your educational background. So, the recruiter looks
at your job titles and responsibilities, employment dates for previous
positions, and how long you have worked with each employer.
Recruiters consider long gaps as red flags that warn regarding your
commitment and accountability skills. You can mention the reasons for these
gaps in your cover letter and demonstrate how you utilized these periods to
learn new things, develop more skills,
or even work in part-time
or freelance
positions.
Try also to demonstrate improvement wherever you can, inside businesses,
and when moving between corporations. Even if you have earned a minor change to
a company's work title, make sure to emphasize that (for example, if you've
been promoted from digital marketing specialist to digital marketing manager).
Achievements and significant contributions
highlighting past results, metrics, and results you have achieved is one
of the best ways to show the recruiters that you are the right fit for the
position.
Most job seekers ignore this section in their resumes, making it a
powerful section to add and easily stand out among others.
Be very precise in your resume bullet points. There if you can, add data
and statistics and replace your responsibilities section with the achievements
section.
There's a big difference between achievement and responsibility, and if
you concentrate on writing about achievements, you will shine.
Here're some of the achievements that you can mention in your resume:
- Mention your achieved goals
in percentage, whether they are the company's goals or personal ones.
- Mention money you've saved
or gained for the company (profits, cost cuttings)
- Use action verbs (for
example, managed a team of 10 employees instead of holding management
positions).
Then review your resume before your interview and make sure you're ready
to talk when they ask about these achievements.
The "10-Second Rule."
There's a common saying that recruiters spend only 10 seconds reading
each resume. Yet, the fact is that they spend more time checking and evaluating
whether or not to continue reading.
If the recruiter finds after reading these three sections that you're a
potential employee, he'll continue reading, and you'll get invited to attend
the interview.
The rule of 10 seconds is only an estimation of how long the recruiter
spends to take his decision.
Now you know the first 3 things a recruiter looks for in your resume, optimize it to stand out among other candidates, and get more interview invitations.