Create a Resume that Lands Interviews with Tiffany Flowers
Are you considering applying for a new job or know someone who is? In this episode Tiffany Flowers who brings over 20 years of working with candidates and hiring leaders shares how to build a powerful resume top to bottom! You don't want to miss these top resume tips. No more old fashioned format! Tiffany knows what works, what recruiters, and hiring leaders look for and what grabs their attention. Implement these to land more interviews and offers to choose from! 1. Have a core resume that you’ll customize based on the job you’re applying to! 2. Mirror each job description, update and move things around to closely resemble the job you’re applying to. Focus on where there is overlap. You want to zero in on and highlight experiences, skills and accomplishments that will resonate with the hiring manager, the recruiter and HR. 3. Lead with what’s relevant! Do not include everything you’ve done over your career 4. Don’t forget to also focus on what you want to do next, transferable skills and relevant accomplishments. Before adding an experience or achievement to your resume, ask yourself, even though I’ve done it and am good at it - is this something I want to keep doing going forward? Remove things you no longer care to keep doing! 5. If you have over 7 years of professional experience - leave out summer, college and high school jobs. 6. Stick to 2 pages max unless you’re a researcher and/or have citations, publications, anything that’s a must for you to convey. 7. Keep formatting simple - Calibri or Times New Roman, black and white, without fancy graphics or formatting because a) you don’t want to make the recruiter or hiring manager think too hard where to find the relevant info and how to make sense of your format. The statistic is that your resume will get 6 seconds or so before a decision is made if you go into a yes or no pile; b)unique formatting can confuse the applicant database matching and scoring mechanisms Remember - if the reader is confused, they will move on 8. Start your resume with a Branding Header, Branding Statement, and Core Capabilities. No more objective, summary and the other old fashioned structure. 9. Start your experience with the current or most recent employer and position(s), one sentence description of your role and 8-10 bullet points. And then work backwards with subsequent experiences taking up 4-5 bullets or less for each. 10. Remember the first 3/4 of your first page is the most expensive real estate, make sure this area conveys the most relevant information, grabs the readers attention and keeps them hooked! 11. Eliminate listing duplicate responsibilities for each of your jobs - for the most part mentioning it once-ideally in your current work experience if it’s relevant is enough. If you do have specific tool or program experience, you can list it a couple of times to bump up your resume with employers automated resume screen and matching mechanisms. 12. Education comes after work experience section, plus add any awards and certifications as relevant. 13.Add volunteer experiences and in most cases stay away from hobbies and interests unless there’s a good reason to include those.