“You only get one chance to make a good first impression” is a saying that nearly everyone is familiar with. What a true statement it is. Without a doubt, first impressions are powerful and often the deciding factors in the judgments people make about one another.
The trickiest thing about first impressions is that they are impossible to erase. This can work against job seekers since they usually get only one shot to positively impact hiring managers. In most cases, a potential employer gets a first impression of a job candidate through his or her resume. Because of this, individuals who want to get hired soon should polish their resumes to perfection (or darn close to it).
Maximize Your Resume with These 3 Tips
Does your resume have some weak spots? Or, does it simply lack a “wow” factor? If so, you can change that with these 3 tips:
- Grab the reader’s attention – The most important words in your resume are the ones located in the first sentence and the titles/sub-titles. 6 Resume Tips That Can Make a Big Difference states, “Employers will normally make a quick judgment about you within the first 5 seconds of scanning your resume. This means that you must make sure that your resume makes an excellent impression right off the bat. By formatting your resume to center around several strong titles and sub-titles, you will likely get a much better reaction.”
- Edit, edit, edit…and do it again! – If you want to kill any possible chance you have of making a decent impression on a hiring manager, don’t thoroughly edit your resume. In all seriousness, you must take extreme measures to see that your resume is worded well and punctuated properly, and that its sentences are properly structured. An extreme measure is reading over the resume many times, on different days, at different times of the day. If you don’t have a lot of time, pay an editor to polish your resume for you.
- Be succinct – Did you know that employers are more likely to thoroughly read resumes that are succinct as opposed to packed with detail? Certainly, you should include all information about yourself that’s relevant to the position you’re applying for, but use words sparingly. This makes them all the more powerful and your initial impression more positive.
There are some advantages to making a first impression via resume. For example, you don’t have to worry about body language, speech, or physical appearance. However, this makes it even more crucial that your resume be flawless. After all, it represents you.
Does your resume call for some maximization?
Share this Post
Comments
Editing does seem like a very smart thing to do after writing your resume. I have a hard time getting started when it comes to writing a resume. Generally, I just start writing things just to get started. So, It would be smart to look back and delete some of those unimpressive or unimportant things.