How to Make Your Resume Highlight Your Skills

The holy grail of the job search is for your resume to attract attention in the first five seconds after it lands in the hands of the recruiter or hiring manager. That is about as long as hiring professionals will spend with a resume before deciding to continue reading and contact the candidate, or move on to someone else. How do you make sure your resume is attention worthy? Here are several tips you can use to make your resume stand out from the crowd.

Assess the needs.
Experts do suggest that you customize your resume for each job. The reason for this is to highlight your skills using the same language the employer applies to the role. Study the job posting and select some primary functions that match your skills then phrase them similarly, but not identically, in your resume.
Use action words.
The best way to draw attention to things you’ve done in the past is to use action verbs to demonstrate your skills. Rather than saying “Customer Service Experience” say “Provided exceptional customer service by addressing each consumer’s individual needs and receiving positive client feedback.” Whenever you can, be sure to add tangible results such increased profits or other measurable statistics.
Don’t repeat information.
Most people will have experience over the course of their career that increases responsibilities from early jobs to more recent positions. However, if many of your job duties were the same from place to place don’t simply restate them under each job on your resume. Relocate them from the individual job summary to a skills profile.
Be neat and organized.
Make sure that your entire resume is formatted the same way using the same font consistently. Strange fonts or changes from paragraphs to bullets make a resume difficult to read and will likely not get a second glance.
Know what to leave off.
There are certain skills that people take for granted in today’s job market. Most people applying for administrative roles have experience with Microsoft Office. Most people know how to type. Leave these off your resume in favor of showcasing skills that fewer people will bring to the table. Also, do not include personal information such as your age or social security number.