The years 2023 and 2024 are expected to bring a lot of competition where employment is concerned.
It is no wonder that people are looking for different ways to upgrade their resumes, often opting to obtain information from the Internet, which may or may not provide the best information on how this whole thing works.
2023 and 2024 are competitive, especially after Covid-19, therefore, the need for making the perfect resume is high. You cannot follow conventional methods to write a resume and expect an interview.
Every year, new things are discovered about what will make a resume more interesting and readable for an employer.
Initially, long resumes were all the rage as people thought that the more they write, the better their employment chances will be.
However, this trend has changed drastically over the years. Nowadays, more concentration is put on the quality of the information on a resume rather than its length.
Why?
It is simple; recruiters do not have the time to read long stories.
They need quality information so that they can decide quickly as they are bombarded with resumes every day!
So what do the years 2023-2024 demand from job seekers as far as resume writing is concerned?
Do’s
- Use professional and easy-to-read fonts such as Arial, Times New Roman, or Verdana.
- Underline, bold, or italicize information to emphasize essential categories.
- Tailor your resume for each position per the requirements of a specific employer.
- Quantify your accomplishments and use power verbs to provide credence to your statements.
- Use bullet points for clarity.
- Put particular emphasis on your transferable skills.
- Proofread and edit your resume several times before you submit it.
Don’ts
- Don’t write your resume based on a ready-made template.
- Don’t use fancy fonts and colors.
- Don’t exaggerate your experiences or accomplishments. You will be tested on them.
- Don’t include personal information like marital status, social security number, or date of birth (An exception is federal resumes.)
- Don’t list your references. If required, provide your recommendations on a separate page or enclose letters of reference with your job application package.
1. Keep Your Resume to-the-point
A resume that is easily navigable will always be successful in 2022. Keep your resume simple and to the point.
With the passage of time, employers are becoming more and more open-minded, making it easy for job seekers to write their job application documents.
But, irrelevant information is not going to be accepted by the majority of recruiters.
Resumes that contain a lot of irrelevant information are a complete no, as they will serve to waste a hiring manager’s time.
2. Choose a Simple Format
As far as formats go, a simple and navigable resume is what is going to be successful in 2022.
As a candidate, it is your duty to make sure that you provide the hiring manager with a resume that he or she can read with ease.
A resume that has little white space is not inviting. And any job application document which isn’t inviting is almost always put away or archived.
Depending on what your specific requirements are, you can use a chronological style or a functional format – whichever suits you best.
The former can be used when you want the employer to focus on your experience, beginning with the most recent.
The latter can be a good choice if you are planning to change careers in 2022, or are a newly graduated individual who is applying for a first job.
Another way in which your resume can make a mark is if you use the combined modern resume style, which is an amalgamation of both functional and chronological formats.
This combination will give you an excellent opportunity to balance your accomplishments and skills and is usually welcomed by hiring managers who want to know how well you have performed in the past, and what potential you have to act in the future.
3. Use Keywords
Resume scanning and shortlisting have increasingly become computerized.
Make sure you include sufficient industry-specific terminology. It will help software and human beings to detect relevance in your resume.
You can find keywords in the job description provided by the employer.
4. Add Compelling Resume Sections
As hiring managers have to go through a lot of resumes in a day, their patience levels are low.
If you want to impress the hiring manager, you must divide your resume into different sections such as objective or summary, skills, education, experience, and accomplishments.
5. Customize Your Resume
Each resume that you write should be different from the last one.
If you are sending your resume to 3 different places, it has to be written 3 times as per the needs of the employer.
6. Start With a Summary or Objective Statement
A summary or objective statement can set the desired tone for any resume. Invest time in writing a power-packed performance summary or objective statement highlighting your maximum value.
7. Use Adjectives and Power Verbs
Replacing a few verbs with stronger action verbs and adding a few powerful adjectives here and there in your resume can work wonders. These power verbs will magically enhance the impression of your resume on potential employers.
8. Focus on Objectivity
Since recruiters don’t have enough time to go through long sentences or paragraphs, they prefer objectively formatted resumes. You can add a core competencies section to relieve the reader’s eyes.
9. Length
The average length of a resume must be no longer than 1-2 pages.
10. Focus on Your Accomplishments
Over the years, as the competition increases in the market, every claim will need to be proved. That is where substantial, quantified accomplishments come in.
If you want to make sure that your resume wins in this competitive market, make sure that you add an accomplishments section to it.
With so many candidates to choose from, a hiring manager will want to pick the person who has a number of job-related achievements to his or her name.
Guidelines for Entry-Level Job Seekers
If you are applying for an entry-level position, you will have to write more information about your skills as that is all you will have to bank on.
It means that you may have to tweak the sections on a resume according to what you need to write – core competencies will become academic accomplishments, etc.
However, if you are an experienced individual, you may want to take full advantage of the different sections in a resume.