Good news, don’t panic! In fact, you’ll be glad to know that conjuring up a resume from scratch doesn’t have to take forever. By following these five simple steps, you can have a CV ready to apply in no time.
1. Figure Out Your Sections
As with any complicated problem – and figuring out how to fit your entire professional life onto one page certainly counts as a complicated problem – it helps to break it down into more manageable chunks. Choosing and choosing how to organize your resume is just that. Imagine giving yourself a map of how to move forward.
Reading: How to create a resume from scratch
To get started, first think about where you stand in your career. If you’re a career changer, your resume will look different than that of a recent graduate or veteran executive. Alongside a work experience section, think about what else you need to include — like your education, skills, professional organizations, volunteer work, and side projects. (And, of course, a header section that includes your name, address, email address, and phone number.)
To understand which format works best for you, check out these four effective ways to organize your resume.
2. List Relevant Experiences
Now that you’ve chosen your format, it’s time to fill everything out. All positions on your resume should be in reverse chronological order in each section, so go ahead and start with your most recent experience.
At some point you will have to worry about creating a one-page resume, but first, list everything and every job and accomplishment that you can think of that is relevant to the type of positions you aspire to. You will refine your wording and edit everything later.
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With that in mind, don’t just limit yourself to full-time paid work experiences. As I mentioned earlier, you’ll definitely want to include any volunteer roles, extracurricular leadership experience, or side hustles you have.
3. Review your achievements
It’s all been pretty easy so far, right? Well, here comes the part everyone dreads: writing bullet points. The misconception here is that you have to write down every little thing you’ve done for every job you’ve ever had. That’s just not true. Instead, you want to focus on the responsibilities and achievements at large.
In other words, what are you most proud of about each of these experiences? You don’t need 20 balls for each position – a handful is fine. Choose what you want to describe. Your goal is to paint an accurate picture of your work while showing hiring managers that you have the kind of experience they are looking for. Here’s a tip: including numbers in your bullet points is a great way to show the scope and impact of your work.
To learn more about this step, here are three questions to ask yourself should ask while you are writing bullet points that will get you on the right track.
4. Edit it down
Chances are what you have right now exceeds the recommended page. (Seriously, unless you’re an executive with 10+ years of experience, it shouldn’t be longer than one page.) So your goal in this step is to brutally clip anything that doesn’t serve a clear purpose from your resume .
What counts as a legitimate reason to keep something? Consider whether the experience is relevant, interesting, or impressive enough to spark a conversation. Or alternatively when it comes to explaining a gap in your resume. If it’s none of those things, it’s time to let it go. Think: high school lifeguard experience, knowledge of Microsoft Word and the phrase “References available upon request.”
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Of course, what is relevant will depend on the position you are applying for, so don’t hesitate to keep a master resume documenting all your different positions and projects.
5. Make it Pretty
This last step is not to be scoffed at. The format matters because if it’s hard to read, it doesn’t matter what your qualifications are, no one will get through it. Maybe it’s just me, but I love formatting and reformatting resumes. (Yes, that’s probably just me.)
There are several ways to do this. You can put your information in any of these 41 beautiful resume templates. Or you can do this manually in any word processor, adjusting margins and font size, trimming bullet points where an extra word is dangling on another line, and using bold and italics effectively. This method gives you a little more freedom to include more information in your resume. Here are a few more pointers on how to clean up your resume.
But overall, don’t spend a lot of time on this step. At the end of the day, recruiters care a lot more about what your bullet points actually say than what font they’re in.
And voila, you’re done! Writing a resume is no small feat, so give yourself a pat on the back when you’re done.If you’re really having trouble reducing this document to something manageable, consider referencing a specific job description. Sometimes it helps to have in mind exactly what an employer is looking for when deciding what to include and what to cut.
Want more tips on how to take your resume to the next level? This ultimate guide is a great next read. Much luck!
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CV creation photo courtesy of Shutterstock.
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