Make your resume stronger with additional information

The basic details of your career will establish you in the mind of a recruiter as a “good” candidate. A strong resume that uses additional information to reinforce your skills and qualifications will make recruiters think, “We need to meet them!”

Take your candidacy to the next level by adding the right additional sections to your resume today. But what additional information should you add to a resume to make for a stronger job application?

Honors and awards

Employers give out employee-of-the-year awards because not everyone can win them. Incorporating the right awards and recognition into your resume will make potential employers take serious notice of your proven capabilities. Creating a strong “Awards” section for your resume is a great move when you want to showcase your uniqueness. Have a ton of professional awards? List them in a separate resume section. Your academic honors, training, and certifications can go in the education section.

Certifications

What better way to prove your competence to potential employers than to show off those certifications you have earned? Certain jobs, such as healthcare professions and technical roles, require candidates to be certified and licensed to be considered qualified. You can create a separate “Certifications & Licenses” section for your resume to really let your certifications catch the recruiter’s eye.

Hobbies and Interests

Your hobbies and interests too can help you elaborate on certain skills such as innovation, tech-savvy, teamwork, and creativity. We encourage candidates to add a separate “Hobbies and Interests” section to their resumes to highlight related skills for a job application. If you have less experience in the field, certain interests will add value to your college graduate resume. If you are an experienced candidate, the interests on your resume will help you look more human in the eyes of the reader.

Testimonials

A sincere testimonial from a previous manager, employer, coworker, or client can tell a lot about your accomplishments, personal traits, and areas of expertise to an interested recruiter. However, not every resume benefits from testimonials. If you are applying for a role in sales, marketing, or an executive-level job, you can include testimonials in your job application. This article explains everything about adding testimonials and quotes to your resume.

Volunteerism

Volunteer jobs can help you show a recruiter how dedicated you are to give back to your community, which always reflects positively on your character. Some career experts say you must incorporate your volunteer activities into a resume. Depending on the relatedness of the volunteer activities to your profession, you can place them in the career summary section or the hobbies and interests section of your resume. Any volunteer jobs related to the role can be listed as a job entry in the work experience section of your resume. If your volunteer activities are not related to the job at hand, simply add them to the interests section and emphasize the leadership skills you gained from it.

Publications

Dedicating a section of your resume to your publications is important when you are applying for a position in academia or the creative industry. If you have published a ton of noteworthy articles, books, blog posts, or white papers, you can add them to your resume to give it an extra spark. Even self-published content goes a long way to showcase your written communication skills. Publications can be added to your resume in a separate section or incorporated into the career highlights section.

Speaking engagements

Are you working in an industry where good verbal communication is a valued skill? Then, highlighting your public speaking skills on your resume will help you stand out easily among other candidates. If you have a lot of examples to share with an employer, you can add a separate “Speaking Engagements” section to your career highlights. For maximum impact, remember to include the topic, where and when you delivered the presentation, and the audience size.