How to create an effective resume that gets noticed

After 23 years in recruitment, I have a few ideas about how to format your resume and make it appealing. To be legible to humans and systems, a resume doesn’t need fancy formatting to stand out from the crowd. The key is to capture succinctly what distinctive value you will add to your hiring manager’s organization. Here are my top 10 pointers for creating a winning CV:

1.      Make sure your name stands out in the document header. Use bigger font than the body of text. For example, if your text is in 10.5-12 point, 14 point makes it pop.

2.      Make sure your contact details are easy to find. I prefer a smaller font in the header underneath your name or right justified across from your name. If your text is in 10.5-12 point, try 9 point. Smaller than that is harder to read when printed out.

3.      Use sufficient white space. This gives your CV a sense of ease. Generally, aim for 1” left and right margins, but you can adjust down to as little as ½” if you are aiming for 2 pages and you are a touch over text wise.

4.      Use color. A little color goes a long way to making your resume visually appealing.  Putting your name, section headers, and bullet points in color makes them stand out. When choosing color, consider your reader. While dark blue can work well for more conservative fields, a little brighter might work better more creative field.

5.      Use reverse chronological order for your work & education.  Generally, when a recruiter gets a functional resume, an early question is “what is this person hiding?” So, wherever possible, use reverse chronological order (with the most recent role at the top, going down to your earliest role at the bottom).  And generally, unless one is a student or new graduate, your work section precedes your education, because what you’ve been doing in the workplace is more recent, and indicates more about what you will offer your employer.

6.      Capture your impact. Use bullet points to describe your experience. Try the STAR method – Situation-Task-Action-Result (which is also a useful way to structure your responses in an interview). This means not just describing what you did, but why it was important and what was the result. Focus not on a laundry list of activities, but on your achievements.  

7.      Give a sense of scale and scope. When you quantify your activities, with how many and how much, your reader understands the breadth and depth of your experience and can determine if it is appropriate to their needs. What/who was your client base? Did you expand market share? By what amount? Did you decrease costs? By how much? If for competitive intelligence reasons, you can’t give dollar values, percentages may be a way to help quantify.

8.      Consider your reader. When you apply for a role, or to an organization more generally, consider what will be important to them. For example, think about the language used in the role description, priorities, strategic plan, or whatever you know about them from your research. Without parroting it, capturing some of that language if appropriate, shows your organizational awareness. As well, Artificial intelligence (AI), HR systems, and human readers may or may not know alternative terms and concepts. If you can put it in familiar language, use synonyms, and define your acronyms, more readers will understand what you can do for their organization. If you are pivoting careers, industries or roles, it is especially important to be able to translate your experience into their language and frameworks so they understand how what you did will be useful to them.

9.      Be succinct. Strunk and White said it best, “omit needless words”.  Generally, you are either targeting a one- or two-page resume. Possibly three if you are including say a deal sheet, project list, or additional relevant information. Whatever the case, on a resume, be clear and make every word count.

10. Show yourself. When I read a resume, I want to get a sense of the whole person. What they’ve done, where they’ve contributed, and what matters to them. We spend more time with our colleagues than our friends and family. When someone is reading your resume, they want to know how what value you will add not just to the work, but also to the life and relationships of the team.

Wishing you every success in your career journey. And please reach out to me, if you would like a hand putting your resume together to feature you in the best light.