What you put on your resume is interesting. What companies want is relevant. Here's how Proformative can make your resume relevant.
One of the beauties of Proformative is the volume of positions to review. You can use the numerous postings of interest to help improve your resume.
The goal is to look for common patterns and/or themes among the different companies. The formats will differ, but it’s the content that matters. You want to make sure your resume is not missing any of the baseline expectations or duties that companies would seek for your targeted role.
Due to high volume of applicants, regardless of level, the use of keyword search is pretty common to get the initial set of candidates. This is used by both internal and external recruiters. Putting in the key experience, duties and phrase will help you be found in the search for further review and consideration.
There are three areas where reviewing multiple job postings can help improve your resume.
ONE: BASELINE SKILLS - When reviewing the postings for positions you are likely to seek, try to look for the following items:
What is the presentation order of expected duties: Usually the most important duties are first on the list. If you see several postings with similar order of duties, then your resume should present your experiences in the same order.
What duties cannot be learned on the job: These are ‘must have’ items and will likely be part of a keyword search of a resume as the company knows the candidate needs that experience.
Commonly used phrases/terms: Make your resume easiest to read, by using terms that companies will recognize and have assigned a meaning internally. I know this may sound a bit like a parlor trick, but it’s simply using a firm’s own language.
TWO: INDUSTRY – If you are switching industries, looking at or understanding common themes within in industry allows you to highlight background elements that are relevant to an industry (e.g. your experience with heavy regulatory environment).
More importantly, the reader of your resume will likely be an industry insider, so they may not be able to translate the terms of your current industry into their own – so you need to do it for them. Describing your past experience with terms from the industry where you are going will help the reader see past the different industry. In short, you just speak in their language.
THREE: CULTURAL - For those positions where you are interested and will apply, you want your resume to show the fit. Look for the words used to describe the company, department or environment. Some of the terms may be throw-away (‘progressive’, ‘forward-looking’, etc.), but others may reveal insight of the culture.
While most of these are found within the job description, where Proformative comes into play is looking at other roles from the same firm. This will help you understand if the culture described in the company or the department. If a department’s culture is different from the company – then it’s a clue into how the people in charge run the group.
The advantage in volume is great, the ability to use Proformative experts, discussions, etc. is where you can really expand your knowledge to help present the tightest ‘fit’ to solving a company’s needs in your resume.
Good luck today!
Mark Richards