Your Resume—The Tool that Opens the Door for an Interview!
The resume is the tool that opens the door for you when you are seeking a new employment opportunity! Insuring that your resume presents you in the best light is important in today’s hyper competitive environment.
Most resumes today are scanned into a central company database when they are submitted on-line. Very few companies today are willing to receive resumes in paper format. Most want them submitted on line. The resumes go into a central database. When the company decides to “pulse the database”, all of the resumes which have the key words included in the database which are included in the job announcement are pulled out for human review.
The first step then is to insure that your resume has the key words included that are in the job announcement. This is best done in the OBJECTIVE part of your resume. Each resume should have an OBJECTIVE section, identifying to any hiring official what it is that you wish to do or are qualified to do. Don’t be shy—be very clear in the objective section of what you wish to do and how your skills fulfill the requirements of the job announcement.
Make sure that each point in the resume uses the WHAT-HOW-RESULT format. WHAT did you do? HOW did you do it? What was the RESULT? This is a simple paradigm; however, it is a very powerful style that allows a hiring official to see very clearly and easily what contributions you made to your previous employers.
Highlight communications and leadership skills. Many companies today are seeking individuals who have good leadership and communication skills. The technical skill proficiency is a given—what is not a given is how one can lead, can follow instructions and can communicate with others in a team environment.
Cite any leadership experiences outside of the job environment. It could be a Cub Scout Leader, Rifle Club Chairman, Car Club Secretary, Service Club Projects Officer—it makes no difference, anything that displays leadership skills should be identified in the resume.
Read and proof read the resume about 6 times. After that, give it to someone who has never seen it and may not know much about you. Let him/her read it and see if they can identify who you are and what you represent. If the answer is they are able to do so, success. If the answer is that they cannot understand what you are or what you wish to do, then it is time to rewrite the resume.
All of these tips will insure that the resume that you write will intrigue a hiring official to the point of giving you a call for an interview. After all, the resume opens the door for an interview.
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