Steps to Creating a Perfect Resume in Less Than 5 Minutes 2021 Update

Perfect Resume: Your resume is arguably the most valuable piece of paper for your career. But this document can be daunting for many. Maybe you’re not sure how to fit in all your information onto one page. Maybe you’re not sure about the right way to format and write your resume.

Maybe you don’t even know what the heck a resume is! Whatever your concern, we’ll break down everything you need to know about making the perfect resume, from scratch.

The perfect resume is a resume tailored to the specific job and position. Everything listed on such a resume has to show how great a match you are.

Perfect resumes don’t list duties and responsibilities, but rather show illustrated by specific numbers: money saved, people trained, orders fulfilled.

Steps to Creating a Perfect Resume

Don’t know where to start? The career experts suggest considering the essential tips below:

1. Tailor Your Resume

I’ve seen a shockingly large number of candidates send out a dozen resumes — that all look the same — to a dozen different job openings.

A great resume should be to the job and type of position that you’re applying for. You don’t have to change every little detail, but the resume itself should reflect the skills and experience that your potential employer would value.

2. Include Your Contact Information

This is one of the top five resume mistakes people make, according to Harvard career experts.

Always be sure to include your email address and phone number. You can go the extra mile by adding your LinkedIn (just make sure it’s up to date) or website that showcases examples of your work.

What not to include:

• A list of references: You don’t even need to put “references available upon request” — hiring managers will ask for this if you advance in the hiring process
• A picture: It doesn’t matter how strong your selfie game is — including your a photo of yourself makes you look unprofessional and could introduce unconscious bias
• Age or sex: Again, keep it professional. It’s a resume, not a Tinder profile…

3. Use Action Verbs

Your resume is a marketing tool, so stick with action verbs. Avoid flowery and high-level claims like “results-oriented,” “team player,” “excellent communication skills” or “hard worker.”

The goal is to deliver specific information about what you’ve done in your previous positions that led to measurable results.

Here are a few examples of action verbs that demonstrate certain qualities and skills:

Leadership:

• Organized guest lecture series featuring over 40 prominent researchers in the field of sleep medicine
• Coordinated media campaigns for Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat
• Led over 20 design projects for nonprofits and social enterprises in the U.S., Mexico, India, Zambia, and Australia

Communication:

• Presented monthly, quarterly and annual spending reports to CEO
• Collaborated with business teams to streamline production release strategy plans
• Directed implementation of a $50 million tech project for 10 major U.S. airports (scaled to support over 15,000 employees); increased productivity by 12% and reduced lost expenses by 8%

Technical:

• Launched first paging network across India; managed operations and customer support with a team of 70 customer care agents
• Built new checked baggage fees model and projected revenue stream of $12 million by forecasting changes in passenger baggage check-in behavior
• Installed Macintosh systems for over 30 new hires; trained employees on usage and company computer policies

Organizational:

• Reduced application testing time by 30% by automating shorter testing for off-cycle projects
• Monitored a $1 billion annual IT budget for 2012 and 2013
• Prepared sales activity and performance reports; reduced report response time by 50%

4. Make It Presentable and Easy to Follow

Your hiring manager’s time is valuable, and a resume that’s all over the place isn’t worth reading all the way through.

Do:

• Be consistent in format and content
• Balance white space
• Use consistent spacing, underlining, italics, bold and capitalization for emphasis
• List headings in order of importance
• Within headings, list information in reverse chronological order (most recent first)
• Make sure your formatting will translate properly if you converted to a PDF
• Keep it to just one page (if you’re a mid- or late-career professional, it’s fine to make it two pages)

Don’t:

• Forget to proofread
• Use a narrative style
• Use personal pronouns (such as “I”)
• Start each line with a date
• Abbreviate
• Use an elaborate template with too many colors

Regardless of where this piece of paper goes and how it grows, when you give it the care and attention it deserves, you set yourself up for success.

And you’ll make it that much more likely that you’ll land an interview and get the chance to prove to the hiring manager—over the phone or in-person—what you’ve got to offer.

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StudentsandScholarship Team.