Looking to make a killer online resume to help land you a new job? There are some “rules of the road” to make sure your resume writing efforts are compensated in spades. Just follow this brief guide and you’ll be on your way to crafting a coherent, powerful resume to post online.
Step 1: Choosing a layout
The layout of your online resume will either attract or repel potential employers. If your resume looks cluttered or if it’s hard to find pertinent information, most employers will just move onto the next resume. Your chances of landing an interview just went out the window.
Using one of the top three resume layout formats is usually the safest bet. FYI – they are known as “chronological”, “functional” and “combination” if you are interested in doing some research about them.
Step 2: Gather your relevant personal information
Writing your online resume becomes much easier when you have easy access to the personal information your potential employer is going to want to know. This means things such as specific dates at previous positions, official titles you have held, and relevant professional certifications.
Step 3: Write out your qualifications into “bite size” bullet points
Your potential employer is only concerned with what it is that you bring to the table. They aren’t looking to hire an incapable employee. And the only way to express your qualifications is with the facts you write into your online resume.
You want your qualifications to be quick and to the point. Stay on focus throughout the entire resume. This means cutting out any flowery words and keeping every bullet point laser focused on the position you are looking to fill.
Step 4: Proofread your resume.
Before you post your online resume, make sure to proofread it to iron out any grammar or sentence structure mistakes. With the help of Microsoft Word, this should be easy.
However, it’s usually a good idea to read through your article a couple of times as sometimes the automated software misses mistakes. It is best to wait for the day after you wrote the resume to actually sit down and review it.
Step 5: Post it.
Your new resume can’t help you get a new job if it’s just sitting on your computer hard drive. You have to get it in front of as many as possible, as quickly as possible!
The best way of doing this is by utilizing job banks. These are basically just websites where you can put up your online resume. Employers can run searches across the available resumes and contact candidates for follow up interviews.
Step 6: Collect additional materials
Although you won’t need more than a resume for most job banks, you should start putting together the extra material you’ll need if/when you make it to the interview process.
This includes things such as letters of recommendation, professional references, letters of introduction, etc.
Of course, there are easier ways to put together a resume, none of which are free. The most common solutions that cost money are to employ a professional resume writer or use resume builder software.
If you want to save money and feel confident in your own writing abilities, then it can’t hurt to write your own resume to post. Just follow this guide; it’s all you really need to craft a good resume.
Tags: online resume, resume