6 Smart Resume Writing Tips

If you haven’t done a resume recently, it’s time to brush up on the most current trends. 

We know many candidates who would rather attempt to write the sequel to War and Peace then to write their own resume’. We help our candidates, but we encourage them to understand what is important in presenting themselves to a prospective company. Here are some of the tips we offer our candidates to help them launch the process of representing their experience and talents on paper.

 1. Start by thinking about what you want to convey to a prospective employer. The first rule in writing is to know your audience. You may know what you have to offer, but you have to put yourselves in their shoes. Think about what would interest them about you, and what makes you the best candidate for the job.

2. Make it easy for the reader to skim your resume and still get the main points. Use bold subtitles and communicate key accomplishments in bite-sized sentences. 

3. Speak to benefits, not just your experience. It’s a good idea to include examples of how you brought value to your employers: money you saved them, models you’ve developed, procedures you put in place or projects that made them money. 

4. Ensure your resume is aligned with your LinkedIn profile, twitter account, blog, and other social media pages. Consistency is key, anything else is confusing and appears as suspicious. 

 5. Use a format that is mobile and device friendly so that your resume can easily be opened on any device without having to log into a platform like Google Docs. A PDF is always a good choice. 

6. Optimize your resume. We can help.

How strong are you at strengths?

You can expect every job interviewer to ask you what you feel are your strengths. When you think about it, your strengths are the things you do within the scope of your position that make you stand out from others who do the same thing.

It can be difficult sometimes to identify our own strengths. Most of us tend to minimize them because they are natural and easy for us, so they don’t feel special. What you may discover is that others recognize them before you do, which is why you might find that some responsibilities get delegated to you more often than others. 

For instance, you may be a natural at organizing your office space or files, and you find that others ask you for ideas they can implement. 

You may be really adept a seeing the bigger picture, so you often find yourself appointed as the project leader.

You may be good at explaining concepts, which puts you in front of the room or in charge of creating a presentation for the executives in your company. 

Once view your strengths from that perspective, you also have the examples to share during an interview, of how your strengths could benefit the prospective employer. 

If you work with a professional and experienced recruiter, he or she can help you prepare for your interview. A good recruiter who really knows you, and knows the position and the company can help you tailor the presentation of your strengths to the requirements of the position. 

How do you define your strengths?  

Let us help you make the most of your strengths. www.actuarialcareers.com