These 7 Things Will Increase Your Chances of Getting Your Ideal Job

For most job seekers, their resume is the reason why they end up with Option D when they could have gone for Option A.

If you are looking for premium resume writing tips to increase your chances of landing your ideal job, then you have come to the right place.

In this post, I’ll be telling you seven things you can do to your resume to stand a chance of getting your ideal job.

1. Write in the third person:

In other words, write as if you are writing for someone else. Your resume is a professional document and should be treated as such. So don't write using “I” or personal pronouns. For example:

“I am an experienced graphics designer with over five years of experience.” ❌

“Experienced graphics designer...” ✅

“An experienced graphics designer...” ✅

2. Use strong action verbs in the past tense:

Are you fond of using verbs like running, setting up, handling, in charge of, etc? Brush up on your vocabulary and exchange these words with strong action verbs like managed, coordinated, supervised, created, edited, designed, and so on. Compare these two examples:

“In charge of organising the event...” ❌

“Organised the event...” ✅

3. Show your achievements:

Your achievements can be the one thing that will make an employer choose you out of 200 candidates with the same qualifications. Why? Because stories sell. Instead of merely listing your job description, talk about what you achieved, how/why it was achieved, and the results of your action. For example:

“Created 13 designs (achievement) with Adobe Illustrator (the how) for the summer marketing campaign (the why) which boosted the number of users on the platform by 175% (results).”

You can also use STAR - Situation, Tactics, Action, & Results - to show your achievements.

4. Make it easy to read:

Use less formatting and graphics. Avoid using too many colours and remove your picture. You also want to use Sans or Serif fonts instead of a design or cursive font. And lastly, remove all infographics from your resume.

5. Highlight both your technical skills and soft skills:

It's good to list your communication skills and other soft skills, but if you are in a position where you use online platforms and applications, you may want to include those as well. For example, an accountant should know QuickBooks or MS Excel, a graphic designer should know Adobe Illustrator, etc.

6. Tailored your resume:

Tailor your resume to the job description in a way that presents your experience and qualifications as the best fit for the role. Look for specific keywords and ensure that your resume mirrors those keywords. So if the job posting needs an accountant with knowledge of QuickBooks and you know how to use it, ensure you state it there.

7. Proofread your resume:

The last thing you want is to give off the impression that you are careless and disorganized. Ensure you proofread your resume before you forward it to your employer. You can also read out what you wrote to check if the sentence sounds okay. And lastly, forward your resume to a friend for them to check what it looks like before you forward it to your employers. I have received resumes that all the text shifted to a particular side. This was a formatting error they didn’t notice until I pointed it out.

I hope this post helps you in your job search journey. If you came across this post by chance and you loved it, I have more cooking up. This is the first of 10 posts in the #10DayChallengeWithRebecca.

I challenged myself to write 10 posts that cover resume writing, job search tactics, interviewing and more for freelancers and job seekers alike.

Make sure to subscribe to this newsletter so you don’t miss a thing.

Don’t forget to like this post and leave a comment.