Tired of not receiving a call back after an initial screening phone interview? Are your interviewers not impressed with your résumé? There may be loads of reasons behind why you are not getting a callback from a potential employer. According to most Hiring Managers, the reason they do not call a job seeker back is because there are problems with their résumé. In face of such stringent competition for one post alone, a candidate must tailor their résumé with utmost perfection in mind.
Top fortune 500 companies strongly advise job seekers to reach out and hire a top rated résumé writing service such as DoMyResume.NET.
Before that, you need to know what are the main criteria that make a résumé remarkable. Hiring managers will be receiving a lot of applicants and thus, they will have a pile of résumés on their hands.
To save time and look for the best candidates for the interviews and screening process, they keep in mind some pointers that help pick the best from the bunch.
Let us get more familiar with what these pointers and criteria are.
Make Your Résumé More Skimmable
A single vacant post receives about 538 résumés of interested applicants on average. That means 538 candidates who deem themselves eligible enough to qualify for the post. Recruiters and hiring managers seek to pick the best out of the stack by screening these résumés. Precision is the key if you want your résumé to pass the screening test.
Skills, qualifications, achievements, and experiences should be highlighted. Make them look catchy enough to grab the reader's attention when they first lay their eyes on them. That of course does not mean using bright colors and unique fonts as much as possible.
Your résumé should mention keywords that make you the best fit for the job. If you are applying for the post of a technical writer, accentuate your previous experiences, skills you possess, and qualifications that make you the best fit for the post. You need your résumé to be picked from the pile.
Mention previous projects you did that involved your technical writing skills. If you have previously worked as a waitress, mentioning the same will not be of much use so leave off irrelevant jobs. You can of course convey your additional experience in waitressing in the interview when the time is right.
Otherwise, bringing it up in the interview or mentioning it on your résumé will be of no help at all.
Take Care Of Your Résumé Headlines And Title
Your résumé header or headline should stand out according to the job role you are applying for. The ideal way of framing your résumé should start with your name in bold, your contact information next, and then your résumé headline. Even the best resume writing service understands what it takes to get your resume ranked high for interviews.
Mention your name first, then your location, working phone number and email address, and at last, social media and portfolio links. Avoid giving your personal email address that looks too informal, instead create an email address just for work.
Create an interesting headline that will spark interest and relate to the vacant post. Keep it short and simple. Ideally, it should come under 10 words and must be comprehensible to all.
For instance, if you are applying for the post of a journalist for a news channel, highlight your achievement along with your relevant experience in the field of journalism. For the post for a journalist, you can bring with ‘Award-winning national- international journalist with 3 years of experience’. Below should be the summary of your qualification, achievements, and skills.
Avoid Certain Phrases In Your Résumé
Hiring managers and recruiters are looking for a candidate’s résumé that meets the needs and job profile. At the same time, they are also looking for a candidate that stands out. So your résumé should stand out from the pile too but in a professional and subtle way.
You must have seen résumé examples mentioning phrases such as ‘I was responsible for’ or ‘responsible for’ or ‘I was given the task of.’
Snooze. These have gone out of date and trend. You should focus on crafting your résumé in such a way as to highlight the best qualities of your friend. Instead, focus on highlighting your achievements. What you did while you were working in your previous job is boring. What you achieved while working on your previous job is interesting and makes your résumé stand out.
You can not use the same résumé for every job role you are applying for. The qualities and skills as well as the résumé headline need to change. Create the required tweaks here and there according to the job requirements before applying for the vacancies.
Résumé Summary Statement
Imagine yourself cramming for an important examination that is to be held in a couple of days and you have to score the best marks possible. Do you go through every chapter of the 800-page book or do you focus on the summary at the end of each chapter?
Going through the summary saves us loads of time and gives us a brief idea about each chapter. We may later turn over some pages and focus on any crucial points that we missed inside the main text. But since the summary already gave us a clear idea about it, we might often don’t feel the need to.
The résumé summary statement matters more than you think. Recruiters, the human resource department, and interviews do not have as much time to get into the details of every résumé. The summary statement should act as a capsule that conveys your skills, background, and experience in a couple of lines. It should capture the attention of the reader and compel them to get in the next round of the hiring process.
If you do not get a call back from an employer, do not feel discouraged. Acknowledge your mistakes and proceed ahead. Polish your résumé as much as possible. You can even take the help of professional résumé writers and résumé services for this. Once you have tailored your résumé according to the job profile, it is time to send your résumés out and prepare for the best.