Creating A Resume That Grabs An Employer's Attention

Always begin your sentences with an action verb when describing your job duties on your resume. The reason for this is that it brings more impact to the resume and helps the employer to visualize you in action. Prospective employers always want to know if you can do at least one of three things which is to help them make money, help them save money or help them save time. So, keep this in mind when writing your resume and choose your action verbs so that they will inspire the reader to contact you for an interview.

You should include a section on your resume that lists relevant keywords or key phrases. This helps employers to locate your resume when they search a database for potential candidates.

Most employers these days require candidates to submit resumes online using a software program that places resumes into a database. From there, the recruiter enters search terms to pull up all the possible candidates so, you want to ensure that your resume contains the appropriate keywords. If you're stuck on keywords to use, you can scan some advertised jobs to get ideas.

While you will want to use some design elements in your resume to make it appealing to the eye and unique, you don't want it to look tacky. Refrain from using too many graphics, difficult to read fonts or bright paper colors in order to attract attention. Focus instead on providing interesting and relevant content on your resume. You want to give the impression that you are confident in your abilities and flashy colors or graphics can come off as desperate instead.

As a rule, you should use either the arial or times new roman font for your resume. Use either one of these fonts or something very similar as you want to ensure that your reader doesn't go cross eyed while reading your resume. The only exception is a resume that is for a creative type of role. If you are a clothing or graphic designer, you can use fancier elements in creating your resume so long as it's tastefully done.

You should also refrain from listing hobbies on your resume unless it's relevant to the position that you're applying for. However, most people list things such as reading, hunting, cycling, etc which for the most part aren't relevant to any job (except for reading). Although, hobbies can make for interesting conversation during an interview, rather than including them on your resume, save that kind of conversation for when you get the interview.

You may be able to talk about your hobbies during the interview if you are invited into the hiring manager's office for example. If you notice that he or she has a book, picture or paperweight that you can relate back to one of your interests, it's a great way to break the ice and get the conversation started. It's better to leave the hobbies off your resume and discuss them if you're asked or if you get the opportunity to bring them up during the interview.