After hours of searching, you finally find a job that you believe is a good fit. Before you hit the submit button and apply, make sure you tailor your resume, cover letter and any other credentials you want to send. Remember your resume will possibly be one of hundreds so you want to stand out long enough to at least get an interview.
1. Create a master resume with lists of all or most experience
Make a list of all the skills you have obtained during your work history. This includes interpersonal, communication, organizational, creative, problem-solving, analytical, computer, technical, and project management skills. If you need help generating your list, check out some examples online. This list you will keep as you tailor your resume later.
2. Read over the job description carefully and find the keywords
Review the job description and highlight the main tasks to be accomplished, the minimum number of years of experience, and desirable skills. Once you have highlighted the words, look for phrases, such as “project management skills” or “business-to-business marketing”. You want to make certain your resume contains those words. A hiring manager will likely scan your resume and may also use software applications to search for certain keywords. Reading over the job description will provide you with a hint on which keywords will be used to bring up the winning resumes.
3. Go over your master list and pull out bullets that match the job description
Once you have the keywords in front of you to use, review your master list and determine which skills you described that either match or can be used to match. If you did not write the skill exactly as it is phrased in the job description, then go back and rewrite it.
4. Change or rearrange bullets to match hierarchy of the job description
When reading over the job description you may have noticed there were sections for “essential duties or requirements” and another for “desirable qualifications.” You’ll use these next to tailor your resume by rearranging your bullets to match. You want to make sure the “essential skills” are at the top or highlighted. You may want to consider writing your skills in the exact same order as the job description, with the essential always on top.
5. Qualify your skills with proven evidence and metrics (if they exist in your roles) and review then review again
You are finally satisfied with the order of the skills and matching the necessary keywords. Now it’s time to go back over the resume and qualify your skills with specific evidence of successful accomplishments. For example, your ability to manage a project and communicate to subcontractors resulted in a savings of the overall project cost by 10%. Instead of using words, such as “successful” or “excelled,” be specific on how your involvement made it a success. After you complete this process, reread the tailored resume then go back and reread it. One helpful tip is to read the sentence backwards. This allows you to see and catch typos better, as well as mistakes in grammar.
Make sure you follow this process for each position you apply to. It does take more time, to rework your resume for each application, but it will ensure your experience is properly reflected, and correlates to each specific position well. You’ll have a much better chance at next steps – good luck!!