How to Amplify Your Resume
Well hello, Boss Babes, it’s certainly been a minute since my last post. I hope you all are out there, slaying the world with your savvy style and awesome work ethic. Now let me ask you, when is the last time you updated your resume? Since the pandemic, millions of people have changed their career paths and are continuing to pursue new career paths that require standout resumes. So, how can we help make yours stand out? Let’s break it down.
With creative platforms like Adobe, Canva, and even free online resume builders, we no longer utilize Word or other basic text editor platforms to create our resumes. Instead, it’s important to format your resume in a way that draws your employers eye, however, there are three types of resume formats that you can follow. There is the reverse chronological, functional or skills-based, and a combination of both. I’m a fan of both and highlighting your skills at the top of the page, versus the middle, followed by your work experience in chronological order. Now if you are just starting out your career, developing a functional/skills-based resume is the one for you because if you’re a recent graduate or are looking to make that career change, highlighting your skills will standout best for your future employer.
Combining both formats can be a great choice for those looking at jobs that require a diverse skill-set. If the job you are seeking asks for an expert in 2-4 different fields, you want to show off those skills. But what about length? How long should the proper resume be? Well, I’d like to argue with the thousands and say, it truly depends. If you’re going for a federal government position, your resume needs to be two pages or more. However, traditionally you want to make sure your resume is less than two pages. If you’re seeking a career in creative arts or marketing, then you want the layout of your resume to be well designed and I’d even say only one page in length. Add color too! Scandalous, I know, but for creative arts, the more creative the better.
Regardless of the field you are going in, you want to make sure your section headings are clear and concise. Pick a consistent size and font and use it throughout the resume. Consistency is key and for when it comes to picking fonts, go with an 11-12 font for the normal text throughout the body of your resume, and for the headers, pick a text size between 14-16 font. Make sure what ever font you choose, is easy-to-read. Also, make sure your margins allow for white space because you don’t know what dimensions your printer will print, so you want to make sure that when they print it off, they get the full resume. Now that you have that down, make sure you send your resume as a PDF and NOT a Word document. You want to make sure that the font, coloring, sectioning, is all clean and concise within the PDF and the margins are good.
So let’s go back for a minute to discuss what content your resume should contain. The most popular sections for any resume are:
Your contact information;
A summary or objective for yourself;
Work experience and achievements;
Education;
Skills;
And as an optional section, you can include any languages you may speak, and publications you have been in, hobbies, certificates, etc.
You cannot go wrong with the above information, but I highly recommend to always have 2-3 people review your resume before submitting it to your employer. One wrong thing can cost you to get passed the HR review process.
For more helpful tips and tricks, be sure to reach out and I am happy to help you build the ultimate Boss Babes resume so you can land the job of your dreams!
