Is Your Personality Showing on Your Resume?

You can still add your personality to a resume while maintaining a standard format with white space, bullet points and a career summary. In addition to unique accomplishments and results that only you can claim, your resume should have your personal touch on it to rise above the crowd and get noticed by a hiring manager. Discover six quick and easy ways to do this personalization.

1. Describe Yourself in Your Words

Avoid jargon and buzzwords that everyone tends to use, such as "results-oriented" or "team player." Instead, use your own words to describe your personality. Rather than say you're results-oriented, describe how that applies to you. Use quantifiable numbers in your resume to back up your claims.

2. Use First Person

Your resume represents your personal brand, so why wouldn't you write in first person instead of third person? Writing in first person comes across as a friendlier tone, which is crucial to acing your interview and getting along with your co-workers. Think of it as speaking to the recruiter or hiring manager in a conversation. You don't normally speak about yourself in the third person, so make each resume rise to the top of the heap by doing the same thing with your written documents.

3. Approach People Directly

Online websites, job boards and applicant tracking systems only mean you know how to get around these technological tools. Rather than fight with the robot guardians, get to the heart of the matter by sending an email as a cover letter along with an attached resume to a hiring manager. Even better, network your way to a job by having someone in the company recommend you to your future boss.

4. Tell Stories About Your Accomplishments

List your actual accomplishments on your resume, because no one else can claim your special set of circumstances that are unique to you. For example, say you "Managed a team of 15-20 people to improve sales 10 percent per quarter for 12 straight quarters." This sentence does a few things, such as using hard numbers, relaying your experience in a certain department and solving a sales problem for your previous employer.

5. Use Proper Visuals

Your resume should have the right amount of white space, bullet points and visuals that draw a hiring manager's eyes to the right places. Consider a Career Summary section at the top that highlights your top-level traits, researching templates that follow trends and setting your accomplishments apart from other text in the resume. Don't forget to tailor each resume to the position at hand.

6. Include Relevant Hobbies

Showcase your hobbies as long as they are relevant to your area of expertise. Your abilities as your child's team sports coach apply to your management style at work. Running marathons in your spare time brings out your competitive spirit as you try to do your best in each race, which comes off as a motivated person at the office.

Since every individual brings unique talents to the company, there's nothing wrong with inserting a bit of personality into your resume. Bring out your best traits within your document with these six tips and see what happens.