Tips to Write a Professional Resume

Are you struggling with resume writing? Have you become tired of spending a fortune on professional resume writing services without any tangible results? Follow our tips and write professional resumes in no time.

Resumes are without a doubt the first thing that the hiring manager will notice about you. You are a product, and your resume is your advertisement, so it should be effective. Because, if it isn’t, no manager will buy what you’re selling and call you for an interview. At BeachHead, we have been advising our candidates on their resumes for many years now, and here are all of our expert tips and tricks, to help you build amazing and most impressive resumes in no time.

Summary

Getting your dream job is difficult, more so if you’re in information technology (IT) sector. It is a fact that most of the hiring managers reject a resume within first 10 seconds of their glance. Therefore, it is highly important that your resume stands out. One of the most effective ways of achieving a star quality resume is to start your resume with a summary. If you are looking for an IT job, make sure you have a technical summary at the top along with a career summary.

Technical Summary

The technical summary should contain your technical knowledge and experience. Recruiters first and foremost look for technical skills, and we highly recommend to put it at the top. It should contain all your technical certifications as well as your experience with operating systems, networks or protocols. Make sure to include any hardware, web applications, database applications, and programming languages that pertain to your experience. Remember to include only those skills that you are most comfortable discussing during an interview.

Career Summary

Companies today need more than just a candidate who fills their must-have skill matrix. Instead, they are looking for individuals who would fit right into their corporate culture. You should highlight your interpersonal, communication, team management, and other transferable skills in this section. It is an excellent idea to add this if you’re not looking for a highly technical role, you can, however, skip this if you’re applying for a job within information technology sector or a senior position. Instead, you can showcase these skills during the in-person interview with the manager.

Professional Experience

It is very important to highlight your work experience correctly in your resume. Do not embellish your experience as it is unprofessional and is so easily referenceable.  There are many ways to highlight your work experience.  However, we highly recommend using a chronological resume and highlighting your professional experience in reverse chronological order documenting employment/contract term by “Month, Year,” as most companies require the detail. Please do not embellish or exaggerate your length of time employed at a firm, as it is often checked and is unprofessional.  Remember it is your brand!  Start with the latest work that you have done. Focus on your roles and responsibilities and remember to highlight key achievements and results.

For each position you’ve held, write a brief description of the scope of your responsibilities and outline your performance. Mention, how your performance benefited the organization and how your initiatives led to positive and tangible outcomes such as increased efficiency, reduced cost, or positive increments in ROI. Remember to give a tangible number to all your achievements. Also, if you’re a contract employees make sure you add your top projects with its scope, your responsibilities, and challenges.

Education

Lastly, you should remember to add your education to the resume. Include the name of the university and the year of your degree.  If your degree comes from an international school, please list the country of origin. It is a good idea to get your education evaluated by a recognized education assessment center if you have completed your education overseas. You should also add all your diplomas and any relevant executive course or program that you’ve attended in this section.

Keyword Match

Here is a BeachHead trick that will make sure that your resume is not lost in some irrelevant folder, but it reaches the hiring manager and recruiter. Keyword matching is ensuring you have the right words in your resume. Go through the job description carefully, and make sure you create a list of all must have skills and nice to have skills. Compare your resume to the job description and find any missing skills, and if you have the experience, please be sure and add them to your resume. This trick will make your resume most relevant to the job and will also help us in matching the right job and right fit for you according to your skill sets. Make sure you repeat this step for every job you apply.

Common Mistakes

Now that you’ve worked so hard, we don’t want you to lose your amazing opportunity just because of these common mistakes. Avoid any formatting or spelling errors as they can create a really bad image of you in front of the recruiter. Be professional and write professionally. Do not use cliches and buzzwords. Make sure you don’t include your personal information such as date of birth, marital status, political opinion, and religion.

Avoid including your high school information. Your resume should not be very long. We understand, sometimes it is not possible to follow a two-page rule but make sure it is not too lengthy. Lastly, never lie in your resume as it can land you an interview but never an offer.

Dot your “i” and Cross Your “t” (Repeat)

We know we are repeating some of the above content, but we cannot emphasize these tips enough.  Once you have completed your resume, please make sure that it makes sense, words and syntax is correct.  The most important BeachHead (!!!) tip is to make sure your resume has NO grammatical or spelling errors.  There is a difference between “there”, “their”, and “they’re”, and sometimes this is not picked up by spelling checkers so please read your resume carefully.  Also, check the spelling of vendor products and company names. Our recruiters have found that Grammarly is the best electronic tool, but nothing beats reading!

As we mentioned earlier, your resume represents you!  Badly formatted resumes tend to leave a highly negative impact to managers and recruiters, so please ensure your resume is consistent in the font, font size, bolding and spacing.

Conclusion

There you go! We just saved you lots of money and hard work behind writing a professional resume. Follow our tips and write yourself a winning resume in no time. Are you looking for an opportunity in IT sector? Need some advice on how to apply for IT jobs? Mail us at info@beach-head.com, and we will help.