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How to Adjust Your Resume to Show You Are the Perfect Fit

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customize resume

Summary: Use your relevant experience and applicable skills to show that you are a “team player” or have other highly desired candidate qualities without directly saying it.

You should already know that you need to customize your resume for each job application by reading the job description and taking note of the target words to address. The question now is how to show that you are a “team player” or “highly motivated” without blatantly saying that. Use these ideas below to help tweak your resume for each application.

Leadership

Even if the position is an entry-level, you can still demonstrate your ability to be a leader by teaching, inspiring, and motivating. Refer to a time that you were giving directions to others through an activity like a presentation or as actual management. The keywords to use are facilitate, supervise, manage, direct, teach, mediate, delegate, advice, recruit, moderate, administer, guide, instruct, coach, counsel, liaise, arbitrate, influence, inspire, and coordinate.

Team Player

Use this target word to highlight your productive experiences working with others. Make sure to use circumstances where the interactions were peer-to-peer. These can be examples where you and a team planned a function for everyone at work, or successfully implemented a new procedure for the company. Use keywords like collaborate, participate, work with, partner, unite, merge, develop, and contribute.

Strong Communication Skills

Discuss times where writing or speaking was your essential role, using whichever medium the job you are applying to matches best. HR positions rely on in-person verbal communications whereas PR positions need strong verbal skills over phone and email. The keywords to use to show this skill are compose, present, interview, persuade, author, interface, articulate, clarify, discuss, negotiate, lobby, speak, and write,

Enjoys a Fast Pace

Discuss examples of when you successfully balanced several projects at one time. These examples demonstrate that you can handle several assignments with efficiency and calmness. An example would be that you were able to easily answer over 30 customer calls while helping customers in-person and maintaining a clean area each day. Some keywords for this skill are expedite, manage, dynamic environment, prioritize, organize, multitask, and high-volume.

Creative Thinker

Creative does not necessarily mean artistic. Do you have any ideas or projects that you developed? Or where you able to figure out a solution to a problem that was unexpected? Other keywords to show your creativity are initiate, create, design, pioneer, innovate, introduce, launch, implement, solve, and introduce.

Analytical Thinker

Explain any circumstances where you worked with data or made logical decisions. Perhaps you have managed budgets, reviewed pay logs, or designed a testing program that increased user activity. Even when you don’t work with hard data, there are ways to add numbers to your descriptions. If you were a manager, include a range of how many employees you oversaw. Include the frequency in which you completed a task, such as how many articles you reviewed each week for editing. Add a scale of how many clients you brought into the company each year.

Self-Motivated

Companies want employees that are proactive and can direct themselves when needed. They don’t want someone that needs to be micro-managed or only does the bare minimum. Perhaps you contacted the clients with orders that were going to be late, reducing the total of canceled orders. Use keywords like anticipate, independently, offer, volunteer, identify, and resolve.

Now that you know how to address your skills, you will be prepared to make your resumes match job descriptions. A customized resume will stand out over other candidates that use their broad resume and get even closer to getting that job.

Photo: talentplusplus.com

How to Adjust Your Resume to Show You Are the Perfect Fit by
Authored by: Amanda Griffin