How to Write a Good Resume | Basic Tips for Resume Content

How to Write a Good Resume | What is a Resume? Basic Tips for Resume Content, Template for Your Resume, How to Generate Resume on NovoResume…See more details below.

What is a Resume?

A resume is an official file/document that make available an overview of your professional qualifications, including your relevant work experience, skills, education, and notable accomplishments.

A strong resume communicates your qualifications and sets you up for career success.

On a base level, a resume is made up of the following five parts:

Name & contact information
Summary
Education
Work Experience
Skills

For a person who is early in their career, it should be only 1 page long.

Many people assume that the purpose of a resume is to provide a full overview of their professional history.

Instead, the goal of your resume is to convince employers/clients you’re worth interviewing. To that end, your resume is a valuable tool you can use to highlight your most relevant experience.

If your resume provides a concise summary of your most relevant qualifications and skills in a format that makes your ability to handle the work as clear as possible, you will get more interviews.

Template for Your Resume

Even if you already have a resume, we recommend re-creating it using a template to ensure an easy-to-read format and proper order. This re-creation process also gives you a chance to review all of your resume content in detail and make even further improvements.

Use an online resume generator such as NovoResume.

You can sign up for a free or premium account at NovoResume. It will walk you through your resume content and then generate a nicely formatted resume for you.

How to Generate Resume on NovoResume

Go to the NovoResume website https://novoresume.com/
Click on “Register”
Fill in your details, then click Register Now. Or you can use your Google account to sign up.
You are now good to go. Use your details to sign in.
On the top menu, click on “Resume Templates”
Select the basic resume template
Click on the “Layout” button
Select “Custom”
We recommend selecting “One Column Document.” It is more ATS friendly.
Drag & Drop the section in the following order. This is the order we are recommending for the different sections.
Now, go back to the editor and rename “Work” to “Work Experience.”
Your template is now ready to be customized.

Tips for Adding Resume Content

In your template you can copy over or write as much resume content as possible. Lets look at some the useful details you need in a resume.

Add your name and contact details. (At a minimum, this is your email address and phone number.)
Add a summary.
We recommend 3 bullet points that highlight the most valuable traits/skills/experience that you bring to the table.
Add your work experience

Tip: Use bullet points (2-3 points per work experience)

Tip: Use action verbs (e.g., achieved, executed, led, planned, strategized, explained, influenced, etc.) Avoid verbs that diminish your contribution like helped, tried, attempted.

Tip: Highlight your achievements: Don’t just list your duties in the company. Highlight the results and impact of what you did. How many human hours did it save the company? By how much did it increase the sales? How many departments did you interact with? What happened as a result of your work?

Tip: Use Challenge Action Result (CAR) statements: Highlight the challenge, describe your actions to address it, and state the result (impact) of those actions. You can read more about CAR here.

Instead of: Responsible for front-end web design.

Try: Redesigned the company’s main web application resulting in a 250% increase in leads, 70% increase in closed deals and an ROI of 350%.

[Optional] Use the same format as your work experience to add your volunteering experience.

If the volunteering experience is not much related to the work you are applying for, you can just list it briefly. If you don’t have any volunteering experience, you can leave it off.

Add the Skills section.

List all the relevant skills you have. Add both technical and “soft” skills like communication, collaboration, about leadership. Include any languages you speak and your proficiency level for each.

[Optional] Add an Interests section.

Interests give the recruiter an idea about who you are beyond work, and can be an opportunity for you to stand out from your peers. They are also helpful when you are applying for a job you are not fully qualified for. They highlight your willingness to learn and improve your skills. Include this if you have space and if you have interesting interests.