The submission of your resume is not an aspect that demands a lot of attention. More of the focus is placed on actually writing and drafting the resume. However, your submission is just as important as the process of preparation. Bad submission often places you on the back burner. In this article we’ll be discussing resumes, the characteristics of a good resume, the importance of proper submission, and how to submit properly.
A resume is a document created by a candidate or job applicant. This document contains details about the candidate. It contains short background information, a list of skills, as well as achievements relevant to the positions being applied to. A resume is a necessary step of a job application. It is one of the primary steps and it helps recruiters and companies know who you are and what you can offer them.
Characteristics of A Good Resume
These are the characteristics of a good resume.
- It should be concise, short, and straight to the point. You should not tell anecdotes in your resume. Two pages is a good number for most recruiters and hiring managers.
- It should be typed out always. It should be typed out in a clear font and a legible font size that will not be hard to read.
- It should clearly state your skills, background, and relevant achievements. It should start with your background and education then your skills then your achievements.
- A good resume utilizes keywords so that it gets picked by recruiter’s software. Find out the best keywords for your field and ensure they are present in your resume.
- A good resume is always tailored to the specific recruiter or company. There is no one size fits all in job hunting. You should aim to be what the company needs.
- A good resume should follow the PAR rule when stating achievements. PAR stands for Problem-Action-Result. State the problem, the actions taken to solve it, and the results.
- A good resume used numbers. If you have work experience state the months or years of work experience. Write the digits, not the words. This goes straight to the point and grabs attention much faster.
- A good resume should match or be in line with your LinkedIn profile.
- Finally, a good resume should have a summary that states what you can offer and what you’re looking for.
Now, when job hunting you can choose to follow the more traditional route of applying to companies directly or you can also choose to send your resume to a recruiter. When you apply to a company, your resume goes straight to the hiring manager. A hiring manager works for the company you applied to. They may also work in the department you’re applying to as well.
A recruiter is a person who reviews resumes and finds them jobs. A recruiter usually works with the company and not the person seeking a job. They will search for the best fit for the company and select the person who meets the standards the company demands. You can find recruiters through LinkedIn and Google. You can also find a recruiting agency if you’re more interested in working with a group of recruiters instead of one.
You can choose to send your resume to companies yourself however recruiters are also a great option because they have access to companies who may not post public vacancy posts, and they can edit your resume to best fit the company. This brings us to our topic of discussion and that is the submission of your resume. Your resume should always be submitted in word format unless specified. Word format is the format of documents typed in Microsoft Word.
There are several reasons why you should submit your resume in word format however we will focus on 3 of those reasons.
Editing and Accessibility
More often than not recruiters will edit résumés to be a better fit. They will do this by placing keywords that the company’s software will detect. They will also edit the résumé to include the agency’s logo so the company knows that the résumé came from them. The word format is much easier to edit for the recruiter and the company your résumé may go to.Word documents are more accessible around the world so you know you’re safe in a majority of the situations. Sometimes hiring managers use a different operating system which may render them unable to access files peculiar to your operating systems or files peculiar to an application. An example of this would be a mobi or an epub file. Without an eBook reader, one cannot access these files.
Sizing
Other formats such as PNG or PDF may not be under the sizing limit. When applying for jobs online, companies and recruiters will place a limit on the size of the file to be uploaded. If you’re unaware that there is a limit you may send off your application without realizing that your résumé did not go through or did not go through completely. Word documents are often very small and are easily under most size limits.
Software Scanning
If you’re submitting a job application online to a company or a recruiter then it will be automatically scanned by the software. This software selects documents that have certain keywords or phrases that the company or recruiter favors. If your document is a PNG file which is essentially a picture, the software may have difficulties highlighting the keywords therefore it will ignore the file. This will not happen for PDFs, however, PDFs violate the first reason because they cannot be edited by the recruiter which means they will most likely be ignored as well.
Searching for a job is often a stressful process and a lot of decision-making lies in the appearance, format, and content of your résumé. Therefore, you should present your resume in the best and most accessible way possible.
