15 Tips for Creating a Killer Resume

Hey Life Lovers! Sorry for the long wait between posts but as you can see we've making some changes to the site. Yagoli is now officially a business and as per our original mission, Yagoli LLC is dedicated to helping make life a little easier one day at a time. As the title of this post suggests, today we're going to be going over some resume writing tips and tricks that'll help your resume get noticed and help you get a foot in the door for the interview.

Organize your work history: Pull up all your old resumes, look up descriptions for previous jobs, gather up any letters of commendation, and awards you received. Organize all of it in chronological order and annotate all of the parts that will help you shine.

Strategize: Don’t just throw everything down on a sheet of paper and call it a day. Think about what your goals are, where do you want to work and what type of work do you do best.

Tailor your resume for the position: Your resume should highlight any knowledge, skills and abilities that relate to the job you want to apply for. Each time you apply for a specific job, your resume should address the qualifications and duties listed in the posting.

Write a rough draft: You’ll want to take some time to do the first draft of a resume then take a quick break. Check your email, Facebook, watch a YouTube video or just take a walk. Just make sure you let your mind get respite. After 15-30 minutes take a second look and make any improvements or revisions you deem necessary. Check and then double-check your spelling, punctuation, and grammar.

Break it down: Descriptions of your experience should be simple. Employers, and more specifically hiring managers, want to know what your level experience is to determine how well you would perform at the job. Think about any projects or special assignments you worked on; what were your duties and responsibilities; what you needed to know to do the job correctly; what tools, software, or equipment you used and be sure to list any major accomplishments.

Be concise: Write in a way that presents a clear summary of what you did in previous jobs and what you do now in your current position. For example:

“Performed scheduled and unscheduled maintenance on 85 sets of personal flight gear and survival equipment including inflatable life preservers, emergency strobe lights, anti-exposure suits and survival radios; 50 sets of night vision goggles and 16 sets of aircraft installed search and rescue equipment,” sounds a lot better than "Performed maintenance on flight gear and search and rescue equipment."

Use action words, modifiers, and phrases such as:

Fabricated labeling system for hurricane paneling application for three life systems work centers allowing for faster implementation of emergency safety measures.

Maintained asset pool at 100%

Directly trained four quality assurance inspectors and three life support systems technicians in a six-month period.

Don’t over do it: While being descriptive is a good thing, you should avoid the use of adjectives and adverbs. Instead of saying, "Was responsible for handling very large shipments of extremely hazardous material by using highly complex logistical software," try, "Was responsible for handling shipments of hazardous material using logistical systems."

Don’t beat a dead horse: Once a skill such as “inspected” or “supervised” is pointed out, don’t cite it again unless you're describing a different position.

Say it in English: Don’t show off how well you know your jargon or techno-talk on your resume. Describe skills and experience in layman’s terms so that it can be understood in both the public and private sectors. Try to avoid using acronyms and when you need to, make sure to spell them out at least once and explain what they mean as well as how you made use of the skills, or knowledge associated with them.

Make it easy on the eyes: Try to cut your paragraph at every 20 lines or so. It’s cool to have more than one paragraph in your experiences but keep the paragraphs short.

Don’t get cute: Don't use graphics, italics, underlining, shadows, inversions (white letters on black background), or symbols such as # * = and don't type your information in all capital letters.

Don’t dig up the past: Only list the training and awards you received within the last 5 years. Don’t attach any copies of training certificates, transcripts, or awards unless the job announcement requires you to.

Make a list of your current certifications and licenses: If you’re applying for a job that requires a specific license or certification, go ahead and list all of your current licenses, certificates, and/or contracting warrants under a separate section on your resume. Include the location of certification, name of certifying organization, and the expiration date, if any. Here's an example for a notary, “Certified Notary Public, Virginia, 08-19.”

Read it over: When you finish writing a section, review it and think about these questions: Would a person who is not familiar with this type of work understand the kind of work that I do?

Is there nonessential information here?

Did I leave out any relevant experience or skills that might help me stand out from other candidates?

Have I clearly described my accomplishments?

Keep it relevant: Having a base line resume that has all your past work and experience is great, but a common mistake for people wanting to switch career paths is that they leave every ounce of work history on their resume. This can come back to bite you if you’ve had multiple jobs in the past. To avoid over saturation, focus on the job experience that relates to the job your applying for and trim the fat off the jobs that are completely unrelated. For example:

If you once worked as a trainer in a gym and now want to get into the world of accounting, a relevant part of your trainer experience is being a people person and maintaining records of your clients’ progress. No one at Merrill-Lynch really cares that you can run a 4-minute mile so you can leave that out.

Follow these tips to boost your chances of getting called in for an interview. If you’re still having some trouble with writing a resume or just want someone to go over yours be sure to ask about our professional resume writing services. For more tips to help make life a little easier, be sure to subscribe to yagoli.com.

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