Writing Your Resume is NOT the First Step

2 min read
Image of lady climbing ladder for the steps before writing your resume

Most job seekers today believe that they should first write their resumes in order for them to land a career. Yes, resumes are truly important and highly critical in one’s professional or corporate success. It plays a vital role for one to achieve his/her career goals.

However, writing your resume is NOT the first step. What you should do first is to look for the most appropriate job for your skills, competencies, and needs. After listing down the job prospects you found that fits your needs and skills, it is only THEN when you move on to writing your resume.

Always keep in mind that in order for a resume to win and stand out among all the other resumes vying for the same position, it should be personalized, specific, and aimed to the job you are applying for. This means one tailored resume for every job prospect.

To ensure this, you must first extensively look for the most appropriate job for you AND understand the job description. As you are reading through the vacant position, there are several things, which you should specifically take note of and consider when writing your resume. These include:

1. Skills, knowledge, and abilities

These are oftentimes always mentioned with specific headings in every job announcement. Once you see these, take note of them and list down your own skills, knowledge, and abilities that are similar or related to the ones in the job announcement.

Do not forget to mention this at the beginning of your resume. It will help the resume reviewer to instantly see that you are fit for the job and place your resume to the piles that are “for consideration/further review”.

2. Qualifications

Similarly, with skills, knowledge, and abilities, these are also combination cycles with drostanole easily found in a job announcement. However, while skills, knowledge, and abilities are oftentimes included in federal job announcements, qualifications are most evident in regular job announcements. These should also be noted down and compared with your own personal capabilities and competencies. After doing so, include in the resume your competencies that relate with the qualifications in the job announcement.

3. Specific keywords

Unlike the first two, these are very tricky to locate within the job announcement. These are specific words throughout the announcement, which describes the highly specific requirements that the employer is looking for in applicants. Most evidently, however, these words are oftentimes repeated for several times throughout the announcement.

Once located, you could include these keywords and use them throughout your resume and cover letter in as subtle a way as the employer has used them in the job announcement.

Standardized resumes and those written using templates and even free resume builders, no longer succeed to catch the attention of the primary reviewer of resumes. To make your resume stand out, it has to be highly specific with contents to impress hiring managers. Taking note of these major key points will help you land the best paying jobs.