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The content of your resume must be excellent.
Use these tips to write your next resume
Targeting Your Career and Audience
You must have a clear idea of what you want to accomplish in your
professional life in order to maximize the impact of your resume
for your targeted audience -- the hiring manager or graduate
school admissions director.
Before you begin, ask yourself these questions.
Are you:
-Making a lateral move?
-Seeking a promotion?
-Career transitioning?
-Pursuing admission into a graduate program?
The most effective way to begin targeting your
resume is to search openings that appeal to you on job
boards, internal company postings, or newspaper classifieds.
With these in hand, you can highlight the qualifications you
will need to be considered and the duties you would be
expected to assume. Every match in terms of qualifications and
experience will serve as key words in your resume, as well as
provide focus so that the resume can be tailored for your targeted
audience. The more closely the content of your resume matches
the content of these postings, the more likely you will be
asked to schedule an interview.
Resumes provided for graduate school admission showcase your
skills, professional experience, accomplishments, and academic
history in much the same way as “job” resumes. The difference is
that an admissions resume will focus on what transitions well to the
classroom, not to the workplace.
Key words include industry-specific acronyms
(i.e. "generally accepted accounting principles" (GAAP) for
accountants; "Certified Professional Resume Writer" (CPRW) for
resume writers; "Series 7 licensing" for brokers; "initial public
offering" (IPO) for investment bankers; "at-risk child" for social
workers; "Level 2 Training" for physicians; "intellectual property
law" for attorneys; "triage" for nurses; and nouns or noun phrases
indicating qualifications or required tasks (i.e. general ledger,
word processing, contract negotiations, benefits, payroll, closing
(for sales people); catering services, new menu items, capacity
planning (for chefs); logistics, quality assurance, advertising
campaigns, product launches, staffing, training, orientations.
Companies that employ scanners require a set number of hits on
key words before the hiring manager will personally review the
applicant’s resume. It is always wise to incorporate as many key
words as possible into your resume.
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