Customize your resume for each job application and win more interviews!

Your resume is the first thing that an employer sees about you. Therefore, it creates the first impression about you in their mind. Do you want that first impression to be a positive one or a negative one?

Hiring managers are busy during recruitment seasons. When they advertise for open positions, they like to get responses from job seekers who are interested in the company. Sending in a generic resume is a sign of a job seeker who is applying for every opportunity available. But a customized resume says that you have taken the time to create a resume specifically for your company. One way to leave an excellent first impression on a recruiter is to customize your resume for their job description.

Customize your Resume:

Start with a bit of research

You can’t start customizing your resume without knowing what the employer is interested in. First find the job description, the company website, company social media pages, and any recent company news. Then, read the job description and highlight important keywords you notice. The company website and social media will tell you the core values the employer admires in a candidate. Any recent news about the employer will let you know what their biggest challenges or achievements are.

List your qualifications

Use your current resume to make a comprehensive list of all your qualifications. Don’t hold back on this step and include as many qualifications as possible in the list. Be sure to list past work experiences, educational qualifications, certifications, and skills. Now, compare the list of your qualifications with the keywords you discovered in the previous step. The items that are common to both lists are the ones that should be highlighted on your resume.

Work on your work experience

The work experience section is usually the most difficult resume section to get right. This is the resume section that includes the most amount of information too. We talked about omitting unrelated qualifications on your resume in the step before, but you can’t do that in your career history without leaving a resume gap. Therefore, list your work experiences in reverse chronological order on your resume. If there is an unrelated job, try to tie back the achievements you have had in that role to the job description. You can do this by using a different context to describe the job.

Use keywords everywhere

Create a dedicated key skills section to be displayed on the first one-third of the first page of your resume. The key skills section must carry 10-15 related keywords, highlighted using bullet points. The secret to writing a great key skills section is to keep it simple. Don’t elaborate on your skills, simply list them down. Ensure that your skills align with the employer’s demands from the job description. Simply mentioning keywords in your skills section is not enough. You should use keywords in the other sections of your resume as well. Some excellent places to display keywords on your resume are:

• Summary statement
• Work experience section
• Certifications section
• Education section
• Awards and recognition section

Tired of getting ignored by recruiters? Need a keyword-optimized, tailored resume for your next job application? Resume Mansion can help you. Visit www.resumemansion.com today and see the difference we make for your job search.