A resume is a brief summary of your skills and experience over one or two pages, a CV is more detailed and can stretch well beyond two pages. The resume will be tailored to each position whereas the CV will stay put and any changes will be in the cover letter. Either ways, your Resume or CV represents you. Since it is for job/career, you might want it to be best. Following are some points that you might want to consider to make your cv/resume better.
Formatting: In the process of hiring, the first thing that a HR sees is your CV. This is the first interaction with you and the way you have formatted your cv gives a picture of you to him. If the company has any prescribed format, please strictly follow that.
Give your resume a professional look: You can find a lot of free templates on the web which you could use to prepare your CV/ Resume. Thus, it becomes very important that you present your CV/resume properly so that HR Officer/Manager can actually visualize you in great and positive ways.
Start out with a statement: In most of the cases or for higher positions, most of the CV/resume are shortlisted based on the statement that has been mentioned on the top. If it is of their interest, then they would study it deeper. Thus, to compel them to go through your CV, you must make it look attractive and start out with a statement. If written in a compelling manner, this can give them a glimpse of your personality and help pique their interest.
Review your CV/resume: Review your experiences, dates, references and make sure that there are no information which is wrong or irrelevant. This is the most sensitive part where most of the applicants fail. There are generally two kinds of applicants seen
- one who do not know, how to express themselves in their resume
- other who would exaggerate way too much on their resume
They both are turn-off for the interviewers. It is must that you should create an image of you in the resume. Something “you are” or “you have” or “you have been” and not something “you were not” or “you could have” or “you could have been”. Remove anything that hardly means or explains you. For eg: You finished Bachelors in Computer Science and it is obvious that you have done some programming languages course during your semesters. Everyone knows that. What could turn-on your interviewer is your achievements in those programming languages such as any projects you coded in past which possibly you could also demo it to them.
Use the job posting as a guide: Study the job post announcement and make necessary adjustments or corrections to your CV. This will help to express that you know where and for what you have used this application for.
Know your audience: It is very important to know where you are going to submit your CV/resume, type of industry, job description, job type, position etc. This will help you update and adjust CV/resume to meet your application needs. Thus, research the company, including its history, products, services, company culture, and recent developments.Find out everything you can about the specific requirements of the job.
Quantify your accomplishments: Quantify your accomplishments in numbers or scale as much as possible. For eg: I made 120+ sales of total NPR 10,00,000 in a week. I got 45+ inquiries in a day on a product campaign on social media.
Use Action and Power Words: Use action and power words as much as possible such as
- Achieved
- Improved
- Resolved
- Managed
- Created
- Generated
- Overhauled
- Implemented
- Streamlined
- Initiated
- Organized
- Introduced
- Identified
- Launched
- Increased
Check this article Things to consider for a Job Interview.