How to write a winning resume

Condensing your professional career down to a few hundred words on a page is always difficult. How can you show a prospective employer the scope of your skills and experience with so little space?

Given that this document will be the first time a company interacts with you, it's important that you do it right. Like the ideal handshake, it needs to be strong, assured and not too long.

If you last applied for a job when you left university, then you're definitely going to want to start a new document.

So what goes into a winning resume?

Take stock – To write or rewrite?

If you're someone who updates their resume on a regular basis, then you'll likely have little trouble adding in new jobs and skills. If you last applied for a job when you left university, then you're definitely going to want to start a new document.

Even if you're going ahead with your existing resume and adding in relevant information, think carefully about how you've laid it out and the font size and type. Clear, professional fonts with adequate spacing make the document easy to read. Underlined subheadings and bold text can make it easy to find the important pieces of information at a glance.

Keep it simple

Did you know that job search website The Ladders found recruiters will spend around six seconds looking at a resume before making a decision?

Cramming in irrelevant positions is rarely going to help your job prospects, nor are paragraphs of text detailing your skills and qualifications. Your prospective employers will likely be receiving dozens of resumes every day, so you want to make sure yours is easy to read.

Aim for two pages, and certainly try and keep it double sided.

When was the last time you looked at your CV?When was the last time you looked at your CV?

Give it a proofread

Grammarly found that nearly 60 per cent of errors on resumes are grammatical. It's a statistic that really shows the necessity of giving your resume a final proofread before you send it off to an employer. It's never a good look when a resume comes through with something as simple as 'resume' misspelled.

Reading the document line by line and passing it through an online spell checker are two of the most effective ways to check for simple mistakes. It may also pay to have someone take a look over your document before you send it off.

Reach out to the recruitment experts at Flexi Personnel today if you'd like to access our range of human resources solutions.