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What are the top ten resume hacks to get you hired? My experience in human resources and as a professional resume writer has given me great insight into what works and what doesn’t. I’ve previously written about the biggest resume mistakes so I’d like to reveal the attributes of a resume that gets noticed and brings candidates in for the interview.
1. Title Your Resume
When submitting a resume to a position make sure you title it to coincide with the role. This can help your resume hiring score with Applicant Tracking Software. The name of the position in your resume’s generates exposure to many ATS metrics. For example:
The title “Director of Marketing,” is your most recent role or professional title. It can also indicate what you’re applying for. However, if you have never held that position please include “Profile,” “Summary,” or Resume,” afterward as it ensures you maintain professional integrity. As an example, “Director of Marketing Profile.”
2. Keep Contact Information Simple
You would be surprised how many resumes I have seen with confusing contact information. Individuals who include day and night phone numbers, work and personal emails, etc. This can be frustrating for hiring managers who are trying to contact you. As a prospective candidate, you should do everything you possibly can to make sure they contact you. Providing easy to follow and easily accessible contact information is an easy way to do this. Include one phone number, one city/province/postal code, one email, one LinkedIn etc. To demonstrate:
Client Name
City, Province, Postal Code • 222-222-2222 • clientname@email.com • Linkedin@Clientname
3. Get Rid of the Objective Statement
This is a well-observed fact throughout the hiring world. The objective statement is no longer needed or wanted on a resume. If you have one get rid of it because hiring managers know why you are applying to a position. It’s because you want a job. You don’t require an objective statement to illustrate this point.
If you want to include something similar consider a professional profile. A professional profile is more of a sales pitch. A concise paragraph that acts as an elevator pitch to showcase your employment history, your skills, work ethic, etc.
4. References or References Available Upon Request
Putting your references on your resume or stating, ‘available upon request,’ is a waste of space and absolutely unnecessary. If a potential employer wants your references, they will ask you during the hiring process. Just having your references listed is undesirable because it occupies valuable space on your resume and doesn’t give you the opportunity to prepare your references.
5. Underlined Text
Just don’t do it. Multiple studies have shown that the majority of readers find underlined text hard to read. Point proven.
6. Save As the Resume Title
For example, if you were applying to an account manager position you should save and submit your resume as “Your Name account manager Resume.” This way the hiring manager will be able to easily track your resume amongst the other applicants. Especially if they titled theirs as “Resume, Name Resume, Name, etc.”
7. Acronyms
If you’re using acronyms in your resume include the full spelling the first time you use it. This will help with ATS scoring and will assist the recruiter if they are not familiar with the acronym.
8. Hobbies/Interests
They are almost never necessary to include on a resume. Truthfully, a recruiter doesn’t care if you like doing puzzles on rainy days. The only exception is if your interest will impact your competency in the positon. A golf course manager should play golf or a hockey coach may benefit from having played hockey.
9. Personal Pronouns
This may be a little confusing. To clarify, personal pronouns are pronouns that are associated with a particular grammatical person. In this context, you should avoid using ‘I’. For Example, “I have comprehensive experience in social media marketing, creative issue resolution, client/public engagement…” This is more compelling if it is written like this, “Comprehensive experience in social media marketing…” The hiring manager knows you’re writing the resume so it isn’t necessary for you to include “I,” in front of everything. A way to determine if you’re doing this correctly is to picture an “I” in front of each sentence.
10. Unrelated/Dated Experience
Your resume is a tool, a focused document to land you a job. As a result, it should not have a bunch of unrelated and dated experience on it. If you’re applying for an IT role your 15-year-old grocery clerk experience is not necessary.
There are ten easy things you can do right now to improve your resume. This will definitely increase your chance of getting hired. Stay tuned for Part 2 which will discuss ten more resume hacks to get you hired.