Resume After Long Absence From Workforce

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Adreanna Israa April 4, 2021 Resume

Show any Training and Education – List any degrees you hold since most employers want to see these. If you have work towards a degree, but are still pursuing or have never finished but you may someday, list it as in progress.

Write the Experience Summary section of your job resume for each specific position you are seeking. You must state a convincing case as to why you are the perfect candidate. For example, if you were applying for a computer programming job, you should focus your Experience Summary on your computer programming skills and experience and establish yourself as qualified right away. It may be nice that you were in a community play or a scout leader, but it is not relevant and won’t get you the job. This ultimate purpose of this section is to quickly make you stand out from other applicants. When drafting your Experience Summary, keep asking yourself if someone else would be able to make the same statements in their own resume. If so, you need to go back and re-work it again. You need to establish your value to the employer and clearly tell them, ”Here is what I can do for you.” Investing your time on this one step will bring huge rewards for you.

Use Action Verbs – Choose your verbs carefully. So many resumes are uninteresting due to poor verb choices. There are definitely skills to great writing, and using the right words to convey action and engage the resume reviewer is one of those skills.

Spend the Most Time on the Most-Read Part of Your Resume – Contrary to what you might think, the most-read part of your resume is not your name. When there are hundreds of resumes to review, names matter little in initial evaluations. The most read part of your resume is your Profile or Experience Summary. If your resume is missing this section, you are losing your best opportunity to create interest. It used to be common to put an Objective at the top of your resume. However, the Profile or Experience Summary section has completely replaced the Objective section. Why? It is a quick 3-4 sentence overview of your qualifications. This acts as an Executive Summary for a reviewer where you clearly point out why you are the best candidate for this specific position. If you don’t generate interest in this section, your chances of further review or even an interview are slim.

As I mentioned earlier, do not assume that a resume reviewer will be familiar with various terms and concepts that could substitute for the ones in the position announcement. That may or may not be true. Best advice is to use the potential employer’s terminology from the job posting since that is most likely what reviewers will be looking for. Again, do not assume that the initial reviewers are familiar with the technology involved with the position. They may not be. Be very clear that you meet all of their requirements by ensuring that your technical skills summary, experience summary, and experience details all generously use the correct keywords for the position you are seeking.

Another important decision that has to be made about the development of a resume is the format it should follow and the most common approach is use of a chronological style. This approach lists each job in chronological or date order and the most current job is listed at the top of the page. The inherent problem with this type of resume is that the focus is placed on what the candidate is doing now without drawing attention to the skills that have been acquired throughout their entire career.