Getting a decent look at your resume from HR and receiving words of appreciation is a dream of every job aspirant. It is a doorway to your job; it describes your qualifications and what makes you unique. It serves as a guide on what you have accomplished and can also provide information about how your professional life has been in the past and what makes you perfect for the job. It is a gateway to your professional life. Let’s know How to get HR to look at your resume?
Your resume can also give you the required exposure. There are different types of resumes that have their importance and can be very useful. We need to consider some points while making a resume so that it may be as professional as possible. You can get her to look at your resume by following some basic rules.
A professional resume should be free from grammatical mistakes, and should not have unnecessary information. Only the information required for the job should be on your resume; qualifications should also be on your resume, with points that explain your skills.
Types of resumes available
- Chronological Resume – A chronological resume historically puts your work experience so that the hr can see what work you have been doing since the beginning of your career. This resume template can be a good choice for those who have plenty of work experience and several achievements to put on their resume.
- Functional Resume – Functional resume format emphasizes your set of skills rather than your work experience. The primary function of this is to draw attention to your abilities and skills rather than focusing on your work history and the knowledge you have gained over the years.
- Combination Resume – This resume is a mix of two resume formats, chronological and functional. It puts equal emphasis on both your work and your skill experience. You should not use this resume if you have any gap in your employment or moved from one job to another in the recent past. The combination resume won’t be beneficial in this scenario. In addition, this resume format can be a bit repetitive, so try not to repeat it if you have a similar set of skills.
- Targeted Resume – This type of resume is written for a specific job opening that highlights your skills and experience related only to that job position. It is a tailor-made resume only for a particular type of job.
Points to consider while making a resume
Write your qualifications – your qualification should be written neatly and cleanly in your resume so that HR can have a decent look at them and can decide if you are suitable for the job position or not.
Focus on your accomplishments – The employer should know what you have accomplished, what you did in the past as a former intern in any company, could also be some extended training that you took during a past job or college.
Use a font that is easy on the eyes – The font should be easy on the eyes and should be at the same time, look professional. For example, you can use the classic Times New Roman or Arial. Be sure to keep the font size from 10 to 14; above, this size looks unprofessional, and below might be difficult to read.
Put your education section at the bottom – You should put your education section at the bottom of your resume so that other content of your resume can be easily visible.
Focus on your work experience – You should put immense focus on your work experience in your resume. Write in elaborate details of your experience. It may prove to be a plus point for you.
Put a list of your skill sets in your resume – Put your skills section in the first place. Then, you can include a bullet list at the top of your resume listing the skill sets that may make you fit for the job.
Awards and hobbies – try to put awards or any other recognition you received as an employee in the past.
Additional Tips and tricks
- Use a spell checker and correct any grammatical mistakes.
- Save your resume in PDF format.
- Add your LinkedIn profile to your resume.
- Omit any irrelevant data that may not be useful in getting the job.
- Remove your graduation year if it’s more than three years since you’re out of college.
- Increase the line spacing in your review to at least 20% of the font size to make it more readable.
- Reduce the top, bottom, and side margins and balance them around your text.
- Keep updating your new skills in your resume.
- Put your skills in different sections of your resume according to their reliability and importance to your job.
- Use primary and clean design; try not to use any distracting or colorful design as it looks highly unprofessional.
- Use more robust English like strong adjectives in place of commonly used adjectives.
- Use a professional email address.
- Keep your contact information up to date.
- Make strategic use of bold, cap, and italics.
- Mention only recent jobs that you have done.
- Don’t make your resume longer than average.
- Provide explanations for any gap, be it professional or educational, in your resume.
- Don’t use comics sans or any other unprofessional font.
Things to avoid
- Home address – Try to prevent your home address in your resume if you are not applying for a local job.
- Long paragraphs without bullet points – Try to use bullet points in your resume and avoid unnecessary long sections.
- Too much personal information – Do not write too much practical information on your resumes like your height, birthdates, weight, age, gender, or political communication.
- Unnecessary hobbies and interests – Avoid unnecessary mention of hobbies or goods if they do not use your job.
- Photograph – There is no need for you to put your photo on a resume if you are not applying for a modeling or an acting job; generally, employees don’t want to be drawn into the allegations of discrimination if they reject any job applicant. Provide your LinkedIn profile.
- Labeling of resume – Do not ever name your resume file with the word “resume.”
- Elementary school information – Never include it on your resume. if you are a high school student, then you can put the first few years of education included, including your elementary information but once you have completed any other form of higher education, eliminate this information
- Salary history – do not put your salary history on your resume. It does not do anything to your job, and it can be a bit unprofessional as well. If you are in a place where it is required to provide your salary history, then deliver it during the interview.
- Negative work experience – If the company needs you to provide detailed information about your past job in your resume, do not indulge in personal specific details about why you left the job, and do not say anything negative about your former boss. Avoid speaking negatively about other organizations.
- Avoid passive language – It can make for a boring read, and it puts down the credits you have achieved for performing various actions during your older jobs. In addition, passive voice hinders the activities and the clarity of your writing and sometimes can add unnecessary words and long phrases to your resume.
- Things you lack – Do not ever write is some of the skills you lack that might be helpful for the job. It can be a way for your resume to get rejected. Avoid bringing things that paint you in a negative light.
- Complex word – avoid using Complex expressions. You can use words not commonly known on a resume but avoid using too tricky or unknown words for an average English speaker.
- Disabilities – In the US, job seekers are not required to tell their disabilities according to the Americans with disability act (ADA). It is also illegal to discriminate against any person with disabilities. If you think that your disability can come in your way to get a job, disclose your disabilities during the interview. Please do not write it on your resume. Put the focus on your skills on your in your resume.
- Personal pronouns – avoid the use of personal pronouns. You have given your resume with your name on it; the employee probably knows that he is reading your resume, so there’s no need to put personal pronouns on it.
- Unrelated social media profile – Do not put your social media profiles unrelated to the job, like your Tik Tok account. Instead, only a set required social media profile that matches the job requirements.
- Some other words/phrases not to be used – Don’t use phrases like it is confidential or word “personal” or on your resume. If you don’t want to give up any information, don’t write it first.
Conclusion
These steps are not all as there are many things to consider while making an HR friendly resume, but if one follows all the things mentioned above, the summary would surely get the attention of the hr. In addition, following the above steps will give the resume a professional touch and make the applicant stand out from the rest.
