The Worst Resume Mistake Part II

In Part I of this series, we were talking about the worst resume mistake you can make. According to the U.S News site, the worst mistake is not tailoring your resume to each job you apply for. So, how do you customize your resume and what are the employers looking for?

The first thing you need to do is to change the way you think about your resume. When I was newly out of college and entering the job market, my resume was an accurate recounting of my entire educational career and a list of every job I have ever had. There was the idea that this form needed to be completely accurate and up to date. At the top of the document was a small paragraph about my career goals and the rest was just a reporting of my career so far. The idea that you could tailor your resume to meet the job requirements seemed suspect. Leaving unrelated job experience off my resume, in my eyes, was an awful lot like a lie of omission. But things have changed.

Your resume isn't like a credit report. It isn't meant to be a factual, yet dry, reporting of all your career successes and failures. Think of it more like your advertisement. The resume should contain the keywords that the employer is looking for, and should only list relevant job experience. When a hiring manager reads your resume, they want to know if you are qualified for the job and why they should hire you. They don't care about your summer job in college, unless it directly relates to the position your are applying for. They want to be given enough information to decide if they want to hear more from you or not, and they want to find that out quickly. So help them.

Here are 5 tips for customizing your resume-

Read the job description- Several times if you have to. Try to figure out exactly what the company is looking for. Go through your resume and determine what qualities and experience you have that would be important for them to know. Be sure to write down the exact words they use to describe the desired skills, education and experience they are looking for.
Turn your job descriptions into keywords- Make sure that you use the words you wrote down in your previous job experience. Don't try to say the same thing in different words, use the exact same word, and use it several times if you need to. They won't be impressed with your Thesaurus usage, but the keyword scanner will rank your resume higher if you use more than one of the keyword they search for and if you use them a few times.
Put the most important job experience first- Determine which of your previous jobs they will be the most interested in, and list those first. This way, when someone is reading it, they don't have to wait until page two to find out that you have been working in the field for some time. Put the related jobs first. If this makes you uncomfortable, you can always add unrelated job experience at the end of the resume.
Rephrase you job titles- If the official job title of your previous position is vague, feel free to change the title to something that more clearly states the position you held. This doesn't mean change “administrative assistant” to “CEO”, but feel free to change “warehouse manager in charge of logistics” to “Head of Logistics” or “Logistics Manager” depending on what would accurately describe your job position.

Again, don't think of your resume as a report, it is marketing. It is never ok to lie on your resume, but it is certainly correct to tailor it to the job and show the employer what they are looking for. Put your best foot forward and use your resume as your own advertisement.

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By Melissa Kennedy- Melissa is a 9 year blog veteran and a freelance writer, along with helping others find the job of their dreams, she enjoys computer geekery, raising a teenager, supporting her local library, writing about herself in the third person and working on her next novel.