Upon seeing frequent rejection of their resume submissions, many job seekers immediately turn to an expensive career coach to immediately have their resume professionally done thinking someone else can make their employment woes vanish.
When it comes to writing a great resume, for the most part resume and cover letter outsourcing is hardly a necessity. If you practice enough, there are certain resume tweaks as well as various resume methodologies that can be implemented on your own. Best of yet, being able to write a resume yourself will provide the luxury of not having to pay someone to have your CV written properly.
These career services are mostly subpar and they typically come gift wrapped with astronomical fee that most unemployed job seekers cannot afford, but are scared into doing.
For the time being, put away the checkbook, keep your wallet padded and I will tell you how to better your resume with two simplistic, yet crucial resume-writing tips. By starting to implement these resume writing techniques and by fully incorporating them within your CV, you could seamlessly improve the quality, content and overall theme of your resume while circumventing costly, professional resume writers some of whom may not be as good as you from the onset.
- Implementing the Who, What, Where, When and Why (5W's)
Each sentence on your resume needs to be very descriptive and robust, yet succinct (don't ramble - obvious tip, but needs mentioning). To be able to write resume sentences / phrases in an interesting and descriptive manner, you first must closely read over your current resume line by line.
Following this, repeat the reading from line 1, but this time actually verbalize each sentence as you continuously ask yourself, "Who, What, Where, When and Why."
To walk you through an example regarding proper implementation of the 5W's, I've listed a generic, commonly used resume phrase below. Then, I compare it to the result one gets when the 5W's resume tactic is factored into the equation.
ORIGINAL RESUME PHRASE:
"Helped customers with incoming inquires"
At KAS, we see it all the time. The above description means little to nothing to those who will be evaluating the resume. This is regardless of whether the screening parties are in the same industry as you are currently working in or are in an entirely different vertical that you're trying to penetrate. Candidly speaking, it's not in the least bit enticing and this phrase requires more thought, a lot more effort and obvious alteration.
NEW RESUME PHRASE AFTER 5W'S
"Helped incoming customers primarily from the insurance, finance and human resources industries become familiarized with the firm's flagship product which is x software, an educational learning technology."
Which one do you think is better?
By starting to go through the motions and getting in the habit of asking the 5W's upon reviewing your current resume content, you will have a presentable, intelligently written and well thought out professional resume.
When done correctly, this can also significantly boost your interviewing confidence.
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