Making yourself jump off the page of a resume is a lot harder than jumping off the page in person. A person is unique, interesting, personable, and concrete. A resume is the coding of a person’s employment abilities — not the actual ‘product’. In order to make yourself a better job candidate, you often have to first become a better resume candidate.
Since a resume is often the first thing drawing an employer to you, you need to find ways to jump off the page. In order to do that, you’ll want to do your research about the company, show off your tech skills, connect to their culture, make sure your internet presence is appropriate, and find a way to stand out in a stack full of copy paper.
Do Your Homework
Having one basic resume is a good idea, but you should tailor pieces of your resume to fit each individual company you’re applying to work with. Jobs aren’t one size fits all, so your resume shouldn’t be either. Start by researching the company by looking through their website, checking them out on LinkedIn, and seeing what others are saying about them.
Find out what they are doing and what makes them different. Not only will this help you to appeal to them, it’ll help you to connect with the company as well — honestly, that’s just as important. If the company is passionate about the environment, their community, or their culture, your research should uncover that, and you can leverage that information in your resume. Doing your homework is always the first step.
Show Off Your Tech Skills
We live in a technological world, and you’d be hard pressed to find a job opportunity that isn’t connected to the tech world in one way or another. A company doesn’t have to be a tech company in order to have technology be a major aspect of operations. With our world encompassed by the internet of things, many aspects of workflow involve an understanding of basic tech skills. The way we communicate, the way data is gathered, and what we know about customers is all a matter of technology. For that reason, your resume should highlight all of your tech skills.
Programming, application development, tech support, security, analytics, web development, internet marketing abilities, and coding are all amazing tech skills that should be highlighted somewhere in your resume.
Connect to Their Culture
Finding a job that you fit in well with isn’t just about finding a company that needs your skills and education; it’s also about finding a personality fit within a company’s culture. The culture of a company isn’t always the easiest to discover, but doing your homework will help you get an insight. Within your resume, highlight the parts of your personalities that match the company’s preferences and objectives.
At the end of the day, they aren’t just finding a new employee; they are finding a new person to work with effectively and cohesively. It’s easier to work with a friend, so connecting to their culture will show that your personality will mesh. Building relationships is important for team communication, so highlight the ways in which your connection to their culture will help build those relationships to increase communication.
Get Your Cyber-Self in Order
There are many things that employers are looking for on your resume, but there are also things off of your resume that they may be looking at through the interview process. These things include social media profiles, your overall online presence, and even your credit report. For that reason, you should get those things in order before they go looking for them. Make sure your social profiles are appropriate, you have a strong online portfolio or LinkedIn profile, and do a soft inquiry on your credit to see what they will be seeing.
If your credit isn’t in order, start taking steps towards getting your credit score in a healthy place. You shouldn’t strip yourself of your identity or personality when getting your cyber-self in order — just be sure you have a presence and that it is employer ready.
Stand Out in Your Own Way
There are so many ways to stand out in your resume, but you’ll have to decide how creative you want to be depending on the type of job you’re looking for, the culture the company has, and the type of industry. Stay on brand, but feel free to find ways to make yourself stick out from the stack of paper. You don’t have to print it on pink, scented paper, but you might use an off-color card stock instead of regular white printer paper. Otherwise, let the content or the design help you stand out.
Think about the things that make you special and find ways to sprinkle them in. Your last job description might be that you managed 10 employees, helped establish a social media presence, and was great at dazzling your coworkers with puns. Look into some creative design elements for your resume to stand out. Either way, it’s important to make yourself noticed among a sea of professionals with a similar education and experience all vying for the same job.
Becoming a better resume candidate is all about making your resume something that an employer will enjoy reading. You need to stand out, show off your skills, and explain why you’re the right person for the job without being there to tell them yourself. In order to have your resume do that for you, you’ll need to do your homework, show off your tech skills, connect with their culture, make your online presence presentable, and make your resume stand out and have a personality. These tips will help increase your value as a resume candidate.
