As the year comes to an end many people start to evaluate their goals for the upcoming New Year. Typical resolutions like losing weight, saving money, and trying a new hobby prevail, but what if your resolution is to find a new career?
When one applies to a new job they usually submit a resume. As an applicant, you want to put your best foot forward. What may have worked for you 5 years ago may not work for the competitive job market now. A resume revamp is in order if you plan on changing specialties, the content is outdated, or you are a recent graduate.
My recent graduation from a Family Nurse Practitioner program prompted the need for a resume revamp. As a nurse with over 12 years of experience my resume was nearly 4 pages long and it didn’t embody all the qualities recruiters look for in an applicant.
What qualities do recruiters look for in a resume?
Four key aspects:
- Concise: Keep it to 1-page; 2 if you have extensive experience. Obviously my old resume wasn’t concise. I’m surprised I’ve gotten so much attention in the past with a resume that long. We’ll see how much of a response I get from a 1-page resume.
- Clear: Make sure your resume format isn’t cluttered and hard for a recruiter to read. If it is, it will surely be tossed in the trash no matter how qualified you are for the job. Also be on the look out for poor grammar and typos. This is another reason good applicants get overlooked for a job.
- Consistent: Keep abbreviations contained within your resume consistent and make sure they are universally understood. Keep all fonts within the resume the same and no smaller than 11 point for easy readability.
- Keywords: Many resumes submitted online go through a scanner, weeding those out that don’t have specific keywords for the position. This means your resume gets lost in cyber world before any human could lay eyes on it. Keyword examples for a nursing resume include: Registered Nurse (RN); health care; intensive care; admit; medication administration.
Use these tips to revamp your resume for maximal results…your new career in the New Year! Stay tuned for next week’s installment reviewing the most common resume mistakes people make.
In addition to working as a RN, Nachole Johnson is a freelance copywriter and an author with her first book, You’re a Nurse and Want to Start Your Own Business? The Complete Guide, available on Amazon. Visit her ReNursing blog at http://renursing.wordpress.com.
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