Have you ever thought, I am perfect for that job, why am I not getting a call back from my resume? So did your resume tell how perfect you were for that job? Most likely not.
It seems that most people tend to send out a generic resume to all jobs with perhaps a more job specific cover letter, or they send out both generically. This is a huge mistake. While a cover letter if required, is supposed to be more job specific, it is more or equally important to 'target' your resume towards each job. I know this might seem like a major pain, but believe me, it is not as bad as you think and you really want the job, right?
Here is our formula to create a resume that will get you a call back for the job if you follow these steps.
Let's start at the beginning. You are searching for a job on a job board and your perfect job comes up... now let's just dash over a resume, correct? No. Instead, here is what you will want to do.
Copy the job ad. Why? You are going to use this job ad to quickly change your resume to be more 'targeted' towards this job. Paste this into a Word or other program that you used to create your resume in.
Highlight the key qualifications in the job ad. Only highlight the key qualifications that you actually have. You can underline or bold them, whichever will make them stand out to you for the next step.
Open up your resume. It is helpful to have a side by side screen but you can toggle between the job ad and your resume.
Go to your Objective on your resume. Change your objective to equal the job title in the job ad. For instance, if the job ad were to say:
Seeking part time customer service rep - you would then put this in your objective to change it to 'match the job' and what they are seeking.
Remember to save your work now as that particular job title so that you have a copy of it and can find it by name to send out to that employer. Ok, with that done, now on to the next steps.
Go back to the job ad. On the qualifications they are seeking in a candidate, what are the key qualifications you highlighted that you possess? You will be inserting these key qualifications that you have and that they are looking for into the top portion of your resume.
Copy one of those qualifications from the job ad. Do one at at time so you can really maximize this skill/qualification.
Go to your resume and locate your first position that you have this qualification. Paste the copied qualification into your resume. At this point, you may need to reword around the qualification to make it flow into your job duties/description.
Move your edited qualification to the top of your job duties. Now go to each job and where you have this qualification, do the same thing, making sure you move it to the top of your job duties under that employer. Edit each one to flow with the job duties/description you currently have on your resume.
Go back to the job ad, and copy another qualification the job ad is seeking and that you have, and do the same thing, until you have copied all of the job qualifications into your resume. Edit accordingly and save your work.
Go back to the job ad and reread the job ad seeking any other qualifications that you have, and input those into your resume.
Spell check your resume and re-save it. Awesome! Your resume is now targeted towards that specific job!
You will need to do this for each job that you are applying to but now that you have the steps, this will become a simple task you can do before you send off your resume to a potential employer.
The best thing about our formula? You may not have to do this again as you just might get that job!
About the Author:
Belinda Stringer is the founder of VirtualAssistants.com, one of the first telecommuting virtual job boards. Before this, she was the Operations Manager of a staffing/recruiting agency, a recruiting/placement specialist and previously published a local parenting newspaper. She can be reached at support@virtualassistants.com or at http://VirtualAssistants.com
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