Here are our top 10 resume tips for technical candidates! Whether you haven’t updated your resume for a while or are just unsure of the best practices for resume building in 2020, we are here to help. Your resume quality can either lead you to your dream job, or a less than ideal placement. As recruiters, we have seen more resumes than you can imagine, and with that comes quite a bit of expertise as to what technical companies are seeking! Keep reading to learn more about our ten resume tips for technical candidates.
1. Layout Matters
It’s not surprising that the first thing a recruiter notices in a resume is the layout! At first glance, they will decide if it looks disorganized or clear and concise. Some must-haves include clear section headings, plenty of white space, and appropriate font and font size. We also recommend PDF format to ensure consistent formatting.
2. Make Your Contact Information Prominent
Make sure to include a phone number and professional email address in a prominent (preferably top) section of your resume. Additionally, list all places the hiring manager can find you on the web, like your LinkedIn profile and Twitter handle if it is professional related.
3. Include All Necessary Information in Work Experience
To give a clear overview of your previous experience, you need to include all the necessary information within your resume. This encompasses your job title, the company name, location, and description if it is not a well-known brand. Also include all achievements and responsibilities (we will get more into this later), and the dates you were employed. This timeframe is especially important if your resume will be audited in an applicant tracking system.
4. Use Reverse Chronological Order
While there is a multitude of ways to organize your previous positions on a resume (including the functional or combination resume), reverse chronological is still the best option. Skip the skills-based resume unless it’s absolutely necessary. This might cause hiring managers to wonder what you’re hiding. Focus on accomplishments from the last 15 years or so, but still provide brief highlights of earlier positions.
5. List Achievements When Possible
One of the most common resume mistakes is only listing your job responsibilities in your work experience section, not your achievements. As you can imagine, many positions have the exact same responsibilities across companies. How does this help you stand out when the majority of all other resumes probably mention the same thing?
To help you stand out, focus on your achievements within your resume instead. Or in simple terms, how exactly you helped the company grow, reach quotas, and more.
Which brings us to our next tip:
6. Make it Quantifiable
Use as many facts, figures, and numbers as you can in your bullet points. How many people were impacted by your work? By what percentage did you exceed your goals? By quantifying your accomplishments, you really allow the hiring manager to picture the level of work or responsibility you needed to achieve them.
7. Show—Don’t Tell—Your Soft Skills
Although you may want to highlight your soft skills in your resume, they can often seem like buzz words. These are important characteristics, but how can you get the point across without directly saying a “strong leader” or an “effective communicator”? Think about how you can demonstrate these attributes in your bullet points without saying them. Share an achievement that shows how you motivated team members or managed a complex flow of communication effectively.
8. Use Keywords
Make sure you use specific keywords in your resume that the company is looking for. Scan the job description, see what words are used most often, and make sure you’ve included them in your resume. While this is also a helpful reminder to target your resume to the company, it is a way to make sure you get noticed in applicant tracking systems. We describe this more in the next point.
9. Tailor Your Resume to the Job
Can you believe 70% of resumes submitted to job-boards are never read? Applicant tracking systems are one roadblock between your resume and the hiring manager. An applicant tracking system is software that helps companies filter through hundreds of resumes they receive per day. Getting past the applicant tracking system is not hard, as long as you know how to do it. The key here is to tailor your resume to each job you apply. To do this, you need to mention the right keywords from the job ad in your resume. If it is a requirement to have a specific amount of experience or experience a specific skill, make sure to use those exact words in your resume if you have those qualifications.
10. Match Your Cover Letter to Your Resume
While this tip doesn’t have to do specifically with your resume, it is a point we want to highlight. We touched on the importance of having your resume reflect the job description, now do the same with your cover letter! A generic cover letter is one sure way not to catch the attention of a recruiter. Check that your cover letter includes the same keywords as your resume to ensure consistency and alignment across your application.
Have any additional questions that go beyond our ten resume tips for technical candidates? Contact us today to learn more about how we can guide you to your perfect job placement.