What Your Resume Should Look Like To Get Job Offers Right Off The Bat

2022 has seen a major shift in the currents of the US job market. Job seekers are leaving current jobs more than ever now to look for better opportunities for growth and higher pay.

If the last time you applied for a job was in 2010, your resume might lack several factors that are considered important in 2022. So, before you start sending out the same old resume for new job applications, read this guide to find out what should change.

One big question most of our clients have is why the looks of their resume would matter when they have a 15-year history of impeccable performance and unsurpassable achievements. They are not wrong to ask so. When it comes to your resume, the content is the most important thing.

However, no one wants to read an unattractive resume that follows the same formatting as every other resume on the market. Your resume must be visually engaging, to draw the eye of an interested reader. A basic 5-minute resume from an online resume maker can narrate your entire career history to a reader, but it would not manage to wow anyone.

You should manage to maintain the balance between the visual appeal of your resume and the content. In most industries, flashy colors and unique designs are not considered ideal by recruiters.

The top half of your resume must be eye-catching

We have mentioned the 6-second resume scan several times before in our articles. For those of you who don’t know, the average hiring manager spends 6 seconds scanning a resume before they decide whether to give the candidate a chance or not. What gets read during these 6 seconds is the top half of your resume.

This is why strategic placement of your resume sections has a significant impact to improve your chances of getting hired. The top half of your resume must contain the resume header, resume summary, education, and work experience.

This way, the hiring manager can grasp all the important facts about you in those 6 seconds. You can compel them to read on, by writing a strong top half of your resume.

When talking about visual appeal, the first half of your resume should utilize colors and formatting to draw the interested eye. Use a colorful resume header to draw the recruiter’s eye to the job title and your summary. You can use color to highlight the resume headings as well. Some candidates choose to frame their skills using colored blocks.

However, keep in mind that you must not go beyond two or three colors. The presence of too many colors and design elements can put off a recruiter fast.

Graphics may not work to your advantage when the ATS parses your resume

There are many sites online that tell job seekers to use charts, tables, graphs, and pictures to make their resumes more appealing. However, ATSs cannot parse any of these elements and your resume stands a chance of appearing as a blank space on the ATS.

They may work well on a human reader, but since the ATS acts as a gatekeeper, your resume might not even be seen by a person if you use these graphic elements.

Attract readers by using formatting to your advantage

Strategic formatting is your biggest ally when writing a powerful resume that draws the readers’ attention to the important facts.

Use ample spacing between resume sections to make your resume an easy read for the hiring manager. Sprinkle keywords throughout your resume to make yourself seem the ideal candidate for the ATS. White space is an important factor that decides the readability of a human reader, so don’t go cramming every space on your resume with facts.

Allow the reader to smoothly transition between resume sections by using distinct resume headings, bold text, italic text, underlines, and bullets.

Some candidates choose to use bold text to emphasize their quantifiable achievements. This is a winning move since recruiters are the most moved by metrics. Resume Mansion advises you to lead with percentages instead of actual dollars when quantifying your professional accomplishments.