Upgrade Your Resume Using These Easy Steps

Even though 70 percent of employers say a referral is the most important method they use to hire someone, you still need a resume to show your work experience on paper. Upgrade your resume with a few simple steps so that you can focus your attention on the job interview.

No More Address

Three lines of a physical address take up valuable space on the page. A phone number and email address, along with a LinkedIn profile, social media account or website URL, should suffice. Employers may see a distant address as a hindrance to showing up on time five days a week.

Format

Upgrade your resume by saving it as a PDF. This document software makes your resume look professional.

Keywords

Automated applicant trackers sift through keywords candidates put on resumes. Study the job posting and mine keywords from the qualifications listed in the ads. It's not enough for you to simply put keywords on the page — make sure every word occurs underneath the proper category in your resume.

Quantitative Results

Use numbers to upgrade your resume from someone with generic qualifications to a person who gets results. Instead of "led a sales team to higher growth," say "my team increased sales 20 percent every year for three straight years." Prove to your potential boss that you can get the job done by leaning on this past accomplishment and your previous work experience.

Education Snafus

Unless you're a recent graduate, eliminate the year of your graduation so that you limit any age-related bias. Some companies may not hire you if they feel you are too experienced or you switched careers midstream. If you graduated from college, your high school years do not matter, either.

Customize

Every company is different, so you should upgrade your resume by customizing various aspects of your document to the employer at hand. That means changing the keywords and the highlights of your bullet points based on the position. A data entry job needs different qualifications than an underwriter position, even if you have experience in both fields.

Delete Soft Skills

Get rid of any soft skills in your resume because you demonstrate these during an interview. Dates of employment, accomplishments, names of supervisors and the companies for which you worked are all provable, hard facts. Upgrade your resume with as many hard facts, and no soft skills so that you can wow an interviewer by showing how your sales strategies from previous jobs translates into success with your new firm.

Keep It One Page

HR managers rarely have time to glance at more than one page of text on a resume. Unless your position, such as a CEO, professor, doctor or lawyer, requires a specialized skill set, your resume should be no more than one page. Prop up your most recent employer, and include 10 years' worth of past experience relevant to the position at hand.

Your document should be targeted to each position for which you apply, so you must know how to translate your experiences to paper. Aim for the bull's-eye, and upgrade your resume with plenty of quantifiable facts that get to the meat of your professional experience. Otherwise, employers may overlook your qualifications and go with someone else.

Photo courtesy of Charlie B. Spaht at Flickr.com