Your resume is a critical marketing piece. It is what you use to present yourself to prospective employers. Your resume should to be designed to stand out from the crowd; however peach colored paper or elaborate type font isn’t going to do it. The one area of your resume you ought to pay very close attention to is your “Accomplishments.”
Place This in the Upper Half of the Resume
Right below your personal information and career goal statement you should have a section entitled “Accomplishments.” A hiring manager or employment recruiter is going to search through a many resumes to find the right candidates. You want to be able to catch their eye quickly and Accomplishments has the best chance of doing this. Why? Because the hiring parties are looking for a perfect fit; the candidate who is best suited to help meet corporate objectives. Job titles and successes matter. Using bullet points you bring attention to your individual success stories. These do not have to be lengthy; a single sentence will do. What is essential is to generate interest so that your resume is pulled from the stack and placed in an area reserved for those to be interviewed. If this happens, you have successfully made the first cut. At KDS Staffing, we always focus on making certain the accomplishments section is clear, concise and well written.
Surviving Resume Parsing
Increasingly more companies are using resume parsing software to select candidates for interviewing. Essentially, resume parsing acts like a search engine. The hiring manager may search by keywords and only those resumes which have the required keywords will be pulled. In your Accomplishments section; make sure to include the most important keywords.
It isn’t too difficult to get the keywords. All you need to do is check the job description, locate the critical skills/keywords, then edit your resume so that what appear to be keywords in the job description appear in your Accomplishments and resume in general. This is not an exact science, but having keywords in your resume can help your chances. At KDS Staffing, keywords are always something we look at. Our goal is to make sure the keywords accurately reflect both the client’s requirements and the candidate’s skills and experience.
Don’t Forget the Rest of the Resume
You also need to pay attention to your work history and your career objectives. A well-written resume that is clear and concise is better than any creative looking document. Your accomplishments are what will attract the attention of the company. Spend the necessary time to make that section look the best. Oh, and always spell check! The KDS Staff, will not allow a resume to be emailed to a client with spelling errors.
Michael Klein is a premier writer and speaker on all aspects of human capital. As VP Operations for KDS Staffing, Inc., he has achieved industry-leading success. Michael was awarded, The New York State Small Business Growth Award; presented by Governor George Pataki. Additionally, Michael has successfully grown and sold multiple firms. If you or your organization would like to discuss hiring needs, contact Michael at 646-350-3015 or michael@kdsstaffing.com.
