All you need to know to build an incredible resume
Putting together your resume can be time consuming, especially when you are not sure about what should be in it. But don’t worry, we’ve got you covered! Jessica Andrews works as an employment officer at Algonquin College and has shared some tips on how to make your resume look professional and ready to land the job you want!
1-Tailor it
In order to make your resume stand out, you want to tailor it to every job that you apply to. Want to know how? Pick out key words from the job posting and use industry language in your resume to make it stand out from other applications.
2-Use the College resources
There are many resources that are available to you through the College. One of them is the program websites. For every program there’s a list of learning outcomes that you would have learned throughout your program that are perfect skills that you can add to your resume. Take a look at yours, put them in your own words and show your future employer all the knowledge and experience you will be able to offer.
3-Be specific about your accomplishments
Instead of just saying one or two words about things you’ve done in previous work experiences to describe what you’ve done, use numbers, values and strong adjectives to highlight your accomplishments.
For example, instead of just saying, “assisted students” you, would write “assisted 5 to 10 students on a daily basis to support them through this or that”. “Numbers give more context to what you’re saying and really demonstrate your skill or what you did,” says Andrews.
4-Work on your profile statement
Instead of an objective statement, start your resume with a profile. “It’s a short summary by yourself in relation to the job or industry you’re getting into and then in your cover later, that’s where you would say like, “Oh this is a job I’m applying for and be more specific,” tells Andrews.
Highlight the program you are in and any hands-on experience you have. Keep it to two sentences. The profile is supposed to grab the reader’s attention, so they want to keep reading to find out more about you!
5- First things first
When choosing the order of things in your resume, you can start with the profile, then skills. As a student or recent graduate, you will put education before work experience.
“It is your most recent and relevant qualification in your field, so that’s what you would be most selling to an employer, but as you then get into your career, and start getting more experience in your field that would be more recent and relevant, so then it would make sense for your education, to go down,” explains Andrews.
6- Avoid templates!!!
“We usually say: don’t use template; just because everybody else is using the exact same ones, then your resume doesn’t really stand out. Templates are also really hard to edit afterwards,” says Andrews. “There’s a lot of different ways you can make your resume unique without having to buy or use a template.”
You can build your own resume in Word. Click here for some tips.
7-Check out resume workshops
The Employment Support Centre at Algonquin College offers support on campus and online as well. One of the services they offer are resume workshops. Check out the website for future dates, as well as workshops that are tailored for international students.
