How to Structure a Resume (CV) to Stand Out
You will find hundreds if not thousands of articles out there suggesting you how to draft the perfect Resume. Just a simple google search of “How to write a resume” will give you 585 million search results. Most of these results however are outdated, some have contradictory information and other are remarkably similar to each other. Regardless, all agree in one point: your resume is your marketing tool. The hiring manager is the buyer, and you are the product in this situation. Your first job is to convince them to buy this “product” and you only get one shot to make a first good impression.
With this article, I do not aim to put out there just another article covering the same topic. This article’s goal is specific: to share the research-based model and approach that I teach to my mentees in every career coaching session. The main reason I decided to write on this topic is to help as much as possible all the people who might have been affected by the latest developments in the world and found themselves on the search for a new job while the number of available vacancies is awfully low and the competition is historically high.
How long should I keep my resume? What do I start with? What do I put on the description section? Do I need to mention my skills separately? Do my hobbies matter? – All theses are frequent questions I am asked by my mentees. And because with the resume you only get one shot, let’s tackle them one-by-one and also analyze other important areas of the resume.
Overall Structure
To start with, the times when everyone was advised to keep their resume to one page are gone. And if you are not someone who just jumped out of the college/university, you will see that with the advice you will read further in this article, it is impossible to not use a second page when you pitch and try to convince a hiring manager that you are the perfect match for their open vacancy. Today, you do not have to play with the size of your fonts and make your resume difficult to read just for the sake of keeping everything under a page. Using “Times New Roman” or “Calibri” fonts on a 11 size should be fine. Going over a page is more than fine, and it has become the normal today. However, always keep in mind that your resume is your pitch to a potential buyer and thereof, all the information you put in there needs to be valuable.
Begin with…
A recruiter or hiring manager may receive up to hundreds of applications for a role and on average they spend between 5-7 seconds for each of them. Therefore, it is important that since the start, you get their attention, and you keep them interested in your resume to spend more time. How do you do that? You gain their attention by beginning with a summary and pitching yourself to them. You need to start big but short. Not too many details. For the details, you have the cover letter.
This summary should be to the point. I suggest that you answer 3 quite simple questions in this part and keep it to 2 or 3 lines maximum. Your answers do not have to be separate sentences. The questions you need to answer are:
Who are you? – here, you need to show them how do you identify and present yourself from a professional point of view. For example: “Security management specialist…” or “HR professional…”. It does not have to be any of the titles you have held in the past; It should describe your area of expertise and it should match what they (hiring managers) are looking for.
What is your big objective? – You need to describe the end goal that you are trying to achieve with your knowledge and expertise. Tell them what is it that you aim for and are passionate about. Of course, again from a professional standpoint, but if possible, I would suggest you structure your answer in such way that it combines your personal (life) and professional (career) objectives. The reason being that when your professional goals are aligned with your personal goals, you show that you have an inner motivation for what you are doing.
What value can you bring to this position? – Show them why are you different than other applicants and why you are going to bring additional value to the team/company. Be specific and pragmatic. Use keywords, but do not use cliché words. Cliché words are boring, and everyone uses them. They will not give you any advantage over other applicants (competitors).
Get the order right and sell them only what matters
If you have had too many roles in the past, it does not mean that you need to include all of them in your resume. Do not forget that your resume is your marketing tool, and as such, it should only consist of valuable information. Irrelevant positions do not offer any value and at the same time they make your resume look longer and boring. Avoid them unless necessary, and only focus on the roles that required you to demonstrate the likes of skills and abilities that are required for the position that you are applying for. To bring that one step further, the same method should be applied for the responsibilities that you put under each of the roles’ description. Do not mention everything that you used to do or perform in your previous role. Mention only the ones that really matter and will help the hiring manager understand that you are able to perform the required responsibilities for the new role. The rest, you can explain them in the cover letter if needed.
When it comes to the working experience section in the resume, the approach that I advise my mentees to follow, is to divide their description’s structure into three parts/layers and keep it the same for all roles.
1. Start with a generic description – It can be only one sentence and two or three lines. The goal should be to provide the hiring manager with an overview of what exactly is it that you were doing and were responsible for in this role. You should explain what the role was about and what was your main task. No need to go into many details yet.
2. Main responsibilities – This is the core part of the description. In this part, you should mention the main areas you were responsible for. Remember what we said earlier in this article – only what can add value to the “selling pitch” matters; Only the activities/tasks/responsibilities that are same or similar to the ones required for the role that you are applying for matter. To achieve that, I suggest you do a little exercise before writing your resume. Take a piece of paper and draw a vertical line right in the middle. For each of the roles you had in the past, write on the left side of the page up to 10 main responsibilities you held. Then, read carefully again and again the job description of the role you are applying for, until you fully understand each of its details. Once done, write on the right side of the paper up to 10 main responsibilities that the new role you are applying for, will require you to perform in the future. Now, compare the content on the two sides of the paper, and from the ones you have on the left side underline the 5 responsibilities that better match or are the same with any of the 10 you have on the right side of the paper. These five, are the ones that you need to include in your “main responsibilities” section for each of the roles. This way, you show to the hiring manager that you have what it gets to succeed to the role you are applying for.
3. Achievements – While it is needed to show the area and scope of your responsibilities, it is a must to show that you were successful in the role. When writing down those achievements, make sure you implement two rules. One, quantify them as much as possible because it helps the hiring manager understand the extend and size of your accomplishment. Two, mention the impact of your achievement. Thus, you show them why this achievement is important and how it (positively) affected the team/company.
Skills and Hobbies
I always say that if you have not yet achieved to convince the hiring manager after the description of your working experience, mentioning a few skills you may possess will not make it any better. You need to make sure that when you describe your previous roles, you do it in such way that you show them you have demonstrated certain skills and knowledge that define your way of working and at the same time are required for the new position. For instance, when you list your main responsibilities, do not say: “managed a team of 20 people…”. That does not show if you were a good manager, neither does it show your personality traits or your management style. Instead, you need to dig deeper and show them what is it that you achieved with your team. Show them how your team has progressed today.
However, that does not apply the same for everyone. It may be that you possess some additional skills that did not easily come out clear on the description. For example, you know how to use a specific system or application that you need to emphasize. In such cases, you need to include them in your resume.
Concerning your hobbies, the experts advise is contradicting. Some say, you need to keep them because they show your interest, and others say remove them because they do not add any value.
My advice is that you include them in your resume. The reason being that a hobby or activity indirectly shows your personality traits. If your hobby is to play football (soccer), that shows that you like being part of a team and collaborating each other. If you like fishing, it shows that you would enjoy some “me-time” occasionally. You get the point! Unconsciously, your interests and hobbies can influence the decision of the hiring manager. Through your hobbies they can understand if you would be a good match with the personalities of the existing team members or not.
Fundamentals to Remember…
Do:
Include a summary (personal statement) at the top of the resume to answer the 3 questions we mentioned.
Update your LinkedIn respectively
Use keywords to describe more (see second bullet point from “Don’ts” below)
Include only valuable information on your description section to demonstrate your ability to perform in the new role by showing how you succeeded in the past.
Focus on achievements (quantified and impactful)
Adjust your resume for each application (remember the exercise we did earlier)
Don’ts
Overdo it with the size of your font just to fit it in one page.
Use cliché words to look smart. They are boring and add no value.
Repeat yourself in the “Skills” section.
Use the same resume for every role you apply for.
Author: The HR Guy
