0:02 As a recruiter and a career coach, I
0:03 look at a lot of résumés and I do a lot
0:06 of résumé reviews. And one thing is
0:09 perfectly clear. Some of y'all need some
0:10 help. And in this video, I'm going to
0:12 share some rum writing tips that will
0:28 Hey everybody, it's Brian from Life
0:29 After Layoff and today I want to share
0:31 with you some rumé writing tips so that
0:32 you can put your best foot forward and
0:34 hopefully start landing more job
0:35 interviews. Now I want to preface this
0:37 by stating that there's no singular
0:39 right way to write a resume. There's
0:40 lots of different approaches and a lot
0:42 of them are very valid and the litmus
0:44 test here is is your resume getting the
0:46 results that you want? If it is then
0:48 stick with what works best for you. My
0:50 approach comes from a corporate
0:52 recruiter's perspective, how I screen
0:53 and look at résumés very quickly. We
0:55 usually give you a five-second glance,
0:58 but also how hiring managers have given
1:00 me feedback on how they screen resumes
1:02 themselves. And so the feedback and the
1:04 tips that I teach are from that
1:06 perspective. But I'm not saying that my
1:07 way is the only way that you can
1:09 approach it. However, I do want to give
1:11 you some tips that can help you improve
1:13 your presentation because ultimately you
1:14 have a very short amount of time to
1:16 capture the attention of the person who
1:18 is screening the resume and making sure
1:20 ours is the one that gets called for
1:21 that first round interview. And I also
1:22 want to point out that the tips that I'm
1:24 sharing today come directly from my
1:26 resume rocket course, which teaches you
1:28 exactly how to write a resume from a
1:30 recruiter's perspective. So, if you need
1:31 a little bit more assistance in
1:33 developing and crafting the right resume
1:35 for you, you may want to consider that
1:36 option. So, the first thing we want to
1:38 do is stop using outdated templates
1:40 designed by graphic designers. I see
1:42 these templates very frequently on
1:44 places like canva.com, but also a lot of
1:47 these big industry réé hubs where you
1:49 can go in, pay some money to download a
1:51 resume that has a bunch of graphics,
1:54 charts, a bunch of cute presentation.
1:55 And those are generally a bad idea
1:56 because they end up distracting from the
1:58 initial purpose, which is for us to find
2:00 what it is that we're looking for in a
2:02 very quick and concise manner. So,
2:03 honestly, I just recommend going on to
2:05 Microsoft Word, downloading a very
2:07 simple template, and working with that.
2:09 If you want a battle tested recruiter
2:11 approved RSé template, I also provide
2:13 one with RSé rocket fuel, and I've also
2:15 made it available as a standalone. So,
2:16 you can find that on my website. When
2:18 you're choosing a template, go with one
2:20 that has one column. Avoid any of the
2:22 bright and flashy colors and graphics.
2:24 Make sure that the fonts are very clean
2:26 and easy to read. I would stick the
2:28 basic colors, maybe blue, blacks, dark
2:30 green, etc. But I wouldn't go very
2:32 flashy here. For most of us, a resume
2:34 should be relatively boring in that
2:36 regard. The only exception here is if
2:38 you're a graphic designer or somebody in
2:40 a creative field where you might want to
2:42 opt for a more creative approach to your
2:44 resume because that's probably expected
2:46 in that role. But if you're a graphic
2:48 designer, you probably don't want to be
2:50 using a template designed by another
2:52 graphic designer is probably not the
2:53 best look for you. And the reason why
2:55 templates designed by graphic designers
2:57 often aren't very effective is because
2:59 they're designed by people who don't
3:01 know how applicant tracking systems work
3:03 and how they parse résumés. To that end,
3:05 here's another tip. Stop making your
3:07 contact information horizontal. You want
3:10 to make it vertical because the ATS
3:12 systems typically do not read horizontal
3:15 and parse it very well. You want to go
3:17 vertical because it finds the
3:18 information more cleanly and puts it
3:20 into the right fields. And here's a
3:22 little litmus test there. If you find
3:24 when you're applying for jobs that the
3:26 applicant tracking system is not parsing
3:28 your name, your phone number, your
3:30 address, things like that in a clean and
3:31 concise way and you have to do a lot of
3:33 manual data entry, you probably don't
3:36 have an ATS compliant resume. Now, your
3:37 contact information isn't the reason why
3:39 you aren't going to get contacted in
3:42 most cases, but it's just a little
3:43 quality of life hack if you want to
3:45 speed up your applications. The next
3:47 thing I would implore you to do is to
3:50 stop writing your resume as a summary of
3:51 everything that you've ever accomplished
3:54 in your career. Start thinking about
3:55 profiling. And I know that we look at
3:57 profiling with a negative context. But
3:59 the idea of profiling here is that
4:01 instead of summarizing and hoping that
4:03 the employer sees something that they
4:06 like that we're profiling for a specific
4:08 role and we're delivering exactly what
4:11 the employer is looking for. It's a much
4:12 more effective approach to writing
4:14 résumés. So stop focusing on all the
4:16 stuff that you've accomplished in your
4:18 career that probably isn't relevant to
4:20 the hiring teams and start focusing on
4:22 what it is that they actually care
4:23 about. The next thing is is going to be
4:24 something that's going to trigger some
4:27 people, but it's to stop being so lazy
4:30 about your customization. Customization
4:32 of your resume is a very crucially
4:34 important step, especially in today's
4:36 job market and in particular those
4:39 coveted remote roles because you may be
4:41 looking for them, but so is everybody
4:44 else. And the competition is fierce. So
4:46 you have to do something to stand out.
4:48 And customizing, while it might seem
4:50 uncomfortable, is something that you
4:52 will have to get in the habit of doing.
4:53 You can't keep on approaching your job
4:57 search like it's 2018. The market is
4:58 completely different today. And listen,
5:00 because everybody else is going to be
5:02 lazy and not customize their resume,
5:03 this is your opportunity to use that as
5:05 a competitive advantage and get that
5:08 edge to get the phone call while they're
5:09 all waiting and wondering why they're
5:10 getting rejected. And while you're at
5:13 it, stop being so damn wordy with your
5:15 resumes. Some of the résumés that I see
5:18 are blocks of text that are so long that
5:20 your eyes just start to glaze over as
5:21 you're trying to scan through it. Think
5:24 of when you go onto a forum or a
5:26 Facebook post or something and people
5:29 leave a huge block of text in a comment.
5:31 How many of you actually get through it
5:33 and read it? Whereas, when people format
5:35 it and make it look nice and concise and
5:38 short, it's much more easy to scan.
5:39 Recruiters and hiring managers are
5:41 probably going to skip over your resume
5:43 if you hit them with a massive block of
5:46 text. So, try to be more concise. Try to
5:47 be very selective with the words that
5:50 you choose and how it lays out on the
5:51 page. And one way you can get rid of
5:54 some of these extra words is to stop
5:56 using proprietary language that the only
5:59 people who know what it is are you and
6:01 maybe your boss and your current
6:04 co-workers. Often times we feel the need
6:06 to put in all this proprietary
6:09 information, titles, project names,
6:12 division names, product types, etc. that
6:14 are only unique and only known by the
6:16 company that you work for. Everybody
6:18 else in the open market has no clue what
6:20 they are. And you're spending all this
6:23 time trying to basically word salad your
6:25 way into I don't know if it's to try to
6:27 impress us or what it is, but you want
6:29 to try to be concise here. So, I always
6:31 recommend to try to boil down the
6:33 concepts that you're trying to convey in
6:36 as clear a language in as common a
6:38 language as possible for the industry
6:40 that you're applying to. Another thing
6:41 that you can do to try to declutter your
6:44 resume is to remove the generic fluffy
6:46 terminology. This stuff makes just about
6:48 every recruiter and hiring manager roll
6:50 their eyes when you say things like,
6:53 "I'm a team player," or, "I have great
6:55 organizational skills." Because listen,
6:56 if that's a really important competency
6:58 to the hiring teams, we're going to
6:59 assess that in an interview anyway. Your
7:01 resume is probably not going to show it
7:03 in a way that we would need to to assess
7:05 your fit. Instead, I would focus on more
7:07 actionable terms and concepts in your
7:09 resume as they relate to the job that
7:10 you're doing. Because again, the goal
7:12 here is not to have the most words on
7:14 your resume or try to impress people
7:16 with an elaborate vocabulary. It's to
7:18 convey a clear and concise fit for the
7:20 job that you're applying to with again
7:22 the end goal of trying to get your name
7:23 called so that you can get into the
7:25 interview process. And the final tip
7:27 that I'd like to convey in this video is
7:29 to stop being so stubborn. If your
7:32 resume isn't working, redo it. But as
7:33 the saying goes, doing the same thing
7:35 over and over again and expecting a
7:37 different result is the definition of
7:38 insanity. But if you're getting
7:40 frustrated in your job search and you're
7:42 getting rejected repeatedly at the
7:44 application level, something tells me
7:46 that your resume is not working for you.
7:48 And this is especially true if you're
7:50 somebody that has a very clear fit for
7:52 the job that you're applying to. And I
7:54 would be remiss without saying that we
7:55 probably need to be realistic here about
7:57 our fit for the jobs that we're applying
7:59 to. While we may feel we're a good fit,
8:01 we have to take a very close look at the
8:03 job posting and say, "Do I truly stack
8:05 up?" Because when they have a thousand
8:07 other candidates, they probably are. So,
8:09 make sure that your resume is clearly
8:11 conveying the fit so that you can give
8:13 yourself the best chance of getting into
8:14 that interview process. Anyway,
8:15 hopefully you found these tips to be
8:17 helpful the next time you're writing a
8:19 resume. And remember, plan, do, check,
8:21 and adjust. If your resume is not
8:23 getting you the results that you want,
8:25 make some changes, mix it up a little
8:27 bit, try a different version. If you're
8:29 still having some struggles, I highly
8:30 encourage you to check out Ré Rocket
8:32 Fuel. Anyway, happy job hunting.
8:33 Appreciate you watching. We'll see you
