Are You Familiar With the Three “R’s” of Resume Writing?

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Resumes still matter even in our digital society where your social media profile is often the first impression in the job market. Hiring managers still lead with the request, “Let’s see a resume,” so taking the time to craft a good document that adequately represents you may just get your foot in the door.

Here are three important tips for honing your resume by following the rule of the three “R’s.”

Resume Tips and the Rule of Three R’s

To ensure your resume leaves a great impression on everyone who reads it, be sure to follow the three R’s of resume writing: Relevance, Results and Realism. These three categories will help you craft a marketing document that leaves employers with a great first impression. For example, create a resume that is:

  • Relevant to the job you’re seeking. If you’re wondering about having a few versions of your resume lying around to highlight different skills, our best advice is to just do it. When creating these documents, consider the job you’re applying for. What will hiring managers want to see on your resume for the particular job they’re advertising? For example, if you’re applying for an entry-level accounting role, will the employer care about your time waiting tables at a local restaurant?Keeping your resume relevant means discarding the parts that won’t give you a leg up in the job. Given that hiring teams scan resumes for information, having a few keywords related to the job you’re applying for will make your resume stand out.
  • Results oriented, listing your major accomplishments at each job. It will give an employer a good sense of what you’ve done in the past and help them quantify what you bring to the table. Rely heavily on action verbs like:
  • Facilitated
  • Grew
  • Created
  • Achieved
  • Won
  • Managed
  • Handled
  • Coordinated
  • Planned
  • Produced
  • Realistic resumes are the ones you can back up with facts later on in an interview. While your resume is a marketing document, always stick to the truth so you don’t appear to hyper-inflate your skills at your next job interview. If you mentored new employees but didn’t manage them, don’t imply supervisory skills you don’t yet have. Many hiring teams will smell the over-inflation simply because they’ve seen it all before. Think of it this way, even if the resume nets you a job you’re underqualified for, what will your first few weeks on the job actually prove to your employer?

Making your resume more appealing to hiring managers’ means you have the specific skills and experiences they’re looking for at that time. That’s why you want someone looking at your resume to be able to discern quickly what you bring to the organization and where you’re interested in adding value.

Talk with the talent team at Top Stack about your goals for the future. We can help you hone your resume to highlight your skills and move into the position you’ve been waiting for.

 

How Can You Differentiate Yourself From Other Candidates?

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Standing out in a good way during the job interview process is exactly what will help you make the next round of discussions – or snag an offer. How can you show employers you have the top skills? When you’re competing against a candidate with the same or similar skills, what can give you the competitive edge?

The answer is soft skills.

Soft Skills to Make You Stand Out

There are certain soft skills that can differentiate you from other candidates including leadership, respect, enthusiasm, confidence and work ethic. Soft skills are the less-quantifiable characteristics that often cannot even be taught, but are a part of how you interact with others in the workplace. As such, these traits are just as important as software skills or professional certifications. In fact, some hiring managers would argue that these skills are more important because hard skills can be taught. With collaboration increasingly important in the workplace, soft skills mark you as a candidate that is more highly desirable than one that might not play well with others.

Here are some soft skills that the employer may look for:

  • Enthusiasm and energy
    Your passion for the job could help you stand out in an employer’s eyes. With employee engagement at an all-time low, sharing your excitement over the role isn’t necessarily a bad thing. An enthusiastic employee is one that typically is the helper on the team, reaching out to others to support their work. That energy is also infectious and can earmark you as the one to pick to reinvigorate a team that is demotivated.
  • Quiet confidence
    Your confidence can be compelling. Employers look for confidence over bragging, competence over a bluff. The confidant interviewee is the candidate that believes in his or her own skills and abilities to do the job. This characteristic can help employers trust you, which is an important part of the hiring process.
  • Work ethic
    Employee productivity is still one of the most important benchmarks of a company’s success. Sharing stories of how hard you worked and what you accomplished during the interview process will impress employers on the fence about your hard skills. Work ethic implies you will do what it takes to succeed. Stories about how you worked a job while in school or the extra time you put after work in to receive your Scrum certification, will impress interviewers and potentially help you land the job.
  • Leadership
    Everyone likes a natural leader, so try to highlight times when you lead teams or when your troubleshooting skills kept a stalled project moving forward. Employees exhibit leadership all the time even if they don’t officially manage a team. Your resume should subtly highlight these areas in your work history and you should reinforce them during the interview process.

It’s important to recognize the power of soft skills to complement those that are more quantifiable. To get more tips on what skills to emphasize with future employers, why not make a connection with the Top Stack recruiting team? Our hard skills are the experience we have with hiring managers, and our soft skills include the ability to create a more human-centered hiring process. Call us to find out why we’re different.