Link Your Resume to the Job Specification

It’s critical to understand up front that, in your resume, interviews and all interactions with employers, the responsibility rests with you to make the match between what you have to offer and what the employer needs

With your resume, it’s up to you to convince the employer that you are worth an interview. Through your resume, you want to demonstrate how your academic, extracurricular, and work experience connect to the job and offer the employer wants. You want to provide the employer with evidence that you are worth taking a closer look at through an interview

To achieve this, you must research the organization and position so that you’ll have a clear idea of what to showcase as you tailor your resume to the specific job. Read the job description carefully; Use it to identify keywords, skills, and requirements. Find the similarities between the job and your experience and qualifications.

Examine the organization’s website and literature for information about the priorities, initiatives, and company culture. Attend company-hosted information sessions to get first hand tips from recruiters, and be sure to ask the recruiter how you can position yourself

In tailoring your resume, highlight the skills specific to the job at hand, and use the keywords and verbiage you’ve gleaned from the job description and your research. Make matches between your knowledge, skills, and experience apparent

Showcase Relevant Work Experience

Relevant work experience – often gained through an internship or co-op experience – gives you a big advantage over candidates who lack such experience

In fact, nearly three-quarters of employers taking part in a recent survey said they prefer to hire a candidate with relevant experience – experience that relates to the job at hand – over other candidates

Highlight your relevant work experience on your resume. Draw connections between what you did as an intern, for example, and what the job requires

Showcase Key Skills

In the same survey, employers said they look at a resume for evidence that the job seeker has worked in a team, and has leadership abilities, written communication skills, problem solving skills, and more

Format for Easy Reading

In general, what matters most to employers are your experience, skills, and education, so make it easy to find and understand these by offering a clean, well-organized easy-to-read resume

Don’t make the employer hunt for critical information. Don’t clutter your resume with irrelevant, unrelated details

In fact, you can hurt your candidacy by providing resume that doesn’t match the job. A potential employer will look at your resume for a matter of seconds: Make those seconds count.

First Impressions Matter

What does your resume say about you? Ideally, it says you warrant a closer look and an interview

But your resume can also say negative, unintended things about you that may lose you the interview

Your resume can say don’t pay attention, don’t care about detail, and/or aren’t interested in the company or job

Instead of showcasing your skills, your resume might be a showcase of typos, spelling errors, misplaced punctuations, and poor grammar – any of which may lead the employer to put you in the “no” pile

Details count: Spellcheck and proofread your resume, and have someone else proofread it, too

Truth Is Better Than Fiction

Misrepresenting your qualifications is a recipe to disaster. In fact, employees have been fired when falsehood on their resume came to light

Be honest, Represent your qualification truthfully. That doesn’t mean you have to downplay or understate your qualifications: By all means, you want to bring those real achievement, skills, and qualities to the employer’s attention

Mark Twain said, “If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything”. That’s good advice to remember when it comes to your resume.