If you're spending hours on Google looking for guides on writing resumes, you're probably tired of sending out the same old boring PDFs and not getting any responses. It's time to spice things up and make your resume stand out like a flamingo in a flock of pigeons! Think of your resume as your personal billboard - it's your chance to sell yourself and grab the attention of hiring managers in just a few seconds. But who wants to read a boring laundry list of job duties? Instead, use your resume as a canvas to showcase your skills, personality, and unique value proposition. With the right approach, your resume can help you land that dream job and get your foot in the door. So don't be afraid to let your personality shine through! To help you get started, we've gathered some tips from industry experts, career coaches, and our own team of pros here at Heyo.
Tips to Make My Resume Stand Out
Before Building a Resume...
Research company culture
Talk to current employees
Schedule practice interview
Apply — to a lot of jobs
Create a well-crafted cover letter
Foundational Resume-Building Tips
Find out what hiring managers want
Create a compelling narrative
Write and rewrite your resume
Quantify accomplishments
Keep your interests interesting
Use objective subjectively
Applying for the Job
Target keywords
Make it visually appealing
Pay attention to details
Tips from HR and Recruiters
Write your resume for humans and ATS
Address resume gaps head-on
How do I make my resume stand out?
Did you know that 95% of resumes end up in the reject pile before they even have a chance to shine. But don't worry, the problem isn't you - it's your resume. And the good news is that most resume issues can be fixed with the right approach. So instead of spinning your wheels and feeling frustrated, it's time to take action and give your resume the boost it needs to stand out from the pack.
With a few simple tweaks and a fresh perspective, you can turn your resume from a dud into a shining star. Let's roll up our sleeves and get to work - your dream job is waiting!
Part I: 6 Tips for Before Building a Resume
1. Research Company Culture
These days, company culture is everything to employers — maybe now more than ever, in the age of remote and hybrid work. Understanding company culture will not only show that you’ve done your homework, but this knowledge will give you a leg up over other candidates. Most companies post their mission and values directly on their website (most even dedicate an entire page to this). Check out some company profiles on Rise, they are packed with helpful information.
2. Get a Referral
One of the best ways to get your foot in the door is through a referral. A job seeker who is referred is up to 14 times more likely to be hired than someone who applies without a referral. This is one of the many reasons why growing your network is valuable. Check your network or connect with someone who already works for your dream company to boost your chances. Ideally, it’s even better if you can proactively build relationships before you start looking for a job. Many employees are more than willing to refer as many companies have general bonuses for successful hires. Platforms like Rise lets recruiters reach out to passive professionals, so make sure you are always networking and putting your best foot forward with the most up-to-date professional presence.
A job seeker is 14x more likely to be hired than someone who applies without a referral
3. Talk to Current Employees
Know anyone who works for your dream company? Use this person as a major resource. It can be intimidating to ask directly for a referral, instead you can also mine them for info that can help you make an informed decision. Things like:
Company culture
Skills and experience
Major company initiatives
Common career trajectories
Company downsides
4. Schedule Practice Interviews
Once you know what recruiters want, it’s time to put your skills into practice. Practice interviews can help you ensure you’re:
Hitting your talking points
On-brand with messaging
Communicating effectively
You can practice interviewing with friends and colleagues or hire a pro to help you hit your talking points.
5. Don’t Disqualify Yourself
Always apply for a job. Even if you don’t meet 100% of the requirements. Did you know that women don’t apply for jobs if they don’t meet 100% of the requirements? Whereas men will apply for a job if they only meet 60% of them. If you want a job, go for it.
6. Create a Well-Crafted Cover Letter
Another way to make your resume stand out is not the resume itself, but the cover letter! Cover letters are a great opportunity to really show potential employers your personality. While there’s limited real estate on your resume, you have almost an entire page to show your communication skills, personality, and passion on a cover letter. Consider adding a personalized video introduction on why you, your professional experiences, and references to stand out from the pack. One common cover letter mistake? Inconsistencies with their accompanying resumes. Cover letters should enhance your resume, and if the two aren’t consistent, you will look flakey to potential employers. When asked about how to stand out in an application, Paige Pollara, Head of Professional Learning @NoRedInk, said: “Be able to articulate your why. So many objectives I've seen are broad and vague. It's generally a signal that the applicant is mass-applying and isn't interested in a specific company or role. Take the extra few minutes to update your application to show how you see yourself in this role. It'll also help you in future interviews when this question is bound to come up!”
Anne Genduso, Certified Career Coach, sums this up well: “Playing a numbers game of 'spray and pray' with your resume gets you one thing in a job search: burned out.”
A few ways to target your search:
Know the exact type of role you’re seeking before you even start looking.
Identify a handful of companies you’d love to work for because they align with your values.
Connect with people who have the job you want and chat to learn more about their path (i.e., solicit an informational interview).
Cater your resume & cover letter to highlight your accomplishments and skills that matter most to each individual employer.
Targeting your search may take time, but you’ll save your mental energy in the process.”
Part II: 9 Foundational Tips
Ready to sit down and write your resume? These foundational tips will help you understand what hiring managers want, create a compelling narrative, and make your resume just a little bit better than everyone else’s.
1. Find Out What Hiring Managers Want
Imagine you’re a hiring manager. Every day, you get possibly hundreds of resumes, and each resume looks the same. What do you want? A resume that’s scannable, easy to read, and compelling.
Create an outline for your resume. Then, start building a compelling narrative around the facts. Show, don’t tell. And don’t leave out irrelevant experiences or details.
2. Create a Compelling Narrative
If you’ve worked for a big brand name, the name itself paints a picture. But if your past experiences were at companies that aren’t so well known, don’t forget to include a sentence about what the company does, what you did for the company, and why a hiring manager should care.
3. Make Your Resume Readable
Don’t list your experience as endless walls of text and bullet points. We get it, there’s so much to say and so little space to say it! Just don’t forget that this needs to be readable.
Katelyn Richards, Career Coach and Personal Brand Strategist, says, “Your formatting matters almost as much as your content does (although content is still king!) You've got about six seconds to draw the reader in, and the best way to do it is by making your resume super easy to digest. Remember that white space is your friend, have clearly defined headers & sections, and use bold, italics, or differently shaded colors to help words stand out and pop!”
4. Write and Rewrite Your Resume
If you’re trying to transition careers or break into a new industry, you may need to apply for several different positions.
Create different variations of your resume that include different skill sets for each position you’re applying for.
Creating several variations will help you hone your skillset on each version — this way, you’ll save space by not listing every role you’ve ever held.
Focus on what you bring to the table for each role, and don’t forget to fill in time gaps if you omit irrelevant roles.
5. Quantify Accomplishments/Results
Don’t consider quantifiable accomplishments and results as just “numbers”. Again, show, don't just tell. Be as specific as possible.
Gladys Ng Kai Xin, Resume Writer and Interview Coach, says, “The most common phrase I see on resumes is ‘Responsible For’. Everyone is responsible for something at work. It’s a given. As such, highlighting what you’re ‘responsible for’ on your resume doesn’t help you stand out. To generate more interest in your resume, quit saying that you were ‘responsible for’ a project, team or task and instead jump straight into using strong action verbs to highlight your achievements.”
If you work in customer service, how many customers did you help each month, week, shift, etc? If you work in design, how many people use your product? Show your impact, paint a picture in people’s minds.
Jessica Hernandez, Executive Resume Writer, also emphasized the importance of quantifying your impact. “Instead of ‘demonstrated success in’ or ‘proven results,’ show the employer the results using data, numbers, and metrics. You can do this by writing bulleted statements about your accomplishments using the C.A.R. formula. C.A.R. stands for Challenge, Action, Result.”
6. List Relevant Skills
Wondering why you are not getting interviews? Studies show hiring managers spend on average 7.4 seconds reviewing each resume. Which means you have less than 10 seconds to make your case.
You need glanceable skills sections that are easy to scan, so hiring managers can quickly gauge what you bring to the table.
Skills to include:
Listed required skills
Software or tools
Pertain to the roles
Don’t forget to include proof points to back up your claims. You’ll need to show that you indeed possess these skills, too.
7. Keep Your Interests Interesting
This is one of the few bits of real estate where you can add a bit of personality, so take advantage of it. However, don’t just list generic things like “travel” or “sports”, everyone likes those, make it a conversation piece, something people will want to ask you about during an interview.
Specificity is the key here, instead of “travel” can you be more descriptive, something like “Backpacking across Bali” because the time you spent in Bali chasing the best waves on your surfboard shows that you are a challenge-seeker. Instead of just “sports” tell us what kind of sport, maybe “competitive rock climbing” or “scuba diving”. Connect the interest to a job skill (if possible). And above all else, make it interesting.
8. Use Objectives Subjectively
You have limited real estate space on your resume, and hiring managers get it: your objective is to find a job.
Objectives aren’t necessary anymore. But if you really feel that yours will help you stand out, don’t take up space with it on your resume. Include it in your cover letter. It’s an added bonus if your objective shows what you can provide potential employers.
9. Link to External Sites
One benefit to online resumes is that you can link to external sites to offer a more holistic view of who you are, your experiences, skills, and even past work samples.
You can link to your portfolio, social media (if it’s relevant), or a Heyo profile to wow employers with your unique professional brand.
"Keeping your resume short and to the point is essential, and linking to an online portfolio offers you another way to expand on your professional experience, show off past projects, and include more ways for a recruiter to get to know you. You should showcase your most successful work, relevant awards, industry references, work samples, and volunteer experience. Also, don’t be scared to show your personality: information like hobbies, interests, or stories from your travels show your human side and why you’d be a fun person to work with. Finally, don’t be overwhelmed by the idea of setting up your own website to house a portfolio. There are plenty of tools to help you do this more easily."
Mac Prichard Host of Find Your Dream Job Career Podcast
Part III: Tips to Make Your Resume Stand Out
Wondering, How to make my resume stand out when applying for a specific job? Yes, it’s important to tailor each version of your resume for each specific job you’re applying for.
You can do this by targeting keywords, including listing and company culture keywords.
1. Target Keywords
Want to know what hiring managers are looking for in a candidate? They already told you in the job description. Look for potential keywords the employer had in mind. Is there a way for you to incorporate those keywords into your resume? In sought-after positions, it’s not uncommon for hiring managers to sift through hundreds or even thousands of resumes. Make sure you’re making it easy for them to find you.
2. Make Your Resume Visually Appealing
A visually appealing resume means one that is clean, concise, and consistent. Visually appealing does not mean standing out in the wrong way though. Consider the following guidelines:
Fonts/colors: Choose these accordingly. When in doubt, keep it simple, especially if you’re applying for a corporate job.
Follow the company’s lead: If you’re applying for a position in design, you may be able to get away with more creativity (in fact, playful creativity may help you get noticed!).
Make the right first impressions: Standing out isn’t always a good thing, make sure you are making the right first impressions, don’t use garish designs that make people remember you for the wrong reasons.
Format: Check the job listing for formatting instructions. When in doubt, format your resume as a PDF.
Title: Don’t save the file as “resume” or it might get lost in the hundreds of other resumes with the same label. Instead, make the title of the document your name.
Follow instructions: Job listing instructions always supersede other advice.
3. Pay Attention to Details: Proofreading Checklist
One of the most common resume questions (other than, “How to make my resume stand out”) is, “How can I make my resume look polished and professional?”
Use this proofreading checklist to make your resume stand out:
Did I use one space after periods or two?
Have I used half-sentence or half-phrases?
Did I include punctuation with sentence case?
Is my date formatting consistent?
Have I paid attention to font, color, alignment, spacing, and verb tenses?
We also recommend:
Omitting your address (city and state are fine)
Asking a friend or colleague to proofread
Limiting resume to one page (unless your accomplishments are significant)
"Move your job description bullets up or down based on the opportunity. If you are looking at a sales role, list these achievements at the top and feature the customer service and marketing-related skills below it."
Virginia Franco Executive Resume Writer + Career Storyteller
Tips From Recruiters and Hiring Managers
Our no. 1 tip from HR and recruiters when trying to find out how to make my resume stand out? Write your resume for both human and applicant tracking systems (ATS).
Before a resume is ever seen by your future boss, it needs to clear a few hurdles: human and computer systems. Yes, write your resume for ATS. If you don’t, it may never see the light of a laptop screen. But also write it to catch the eye of the recruiting team.
Although there are a lot of tips out there on how to write for ATS, Asia Forest, a recruiting professional, says “If you want to optimize your resume, think about who you’re optimizing it for. A person! Where is someone’s eye drawn when they first see your resume, are you clearly explaining not only what you did in a role but the impact you had, and lastly does your resume highlight the qualifications needed for the role.”
“If you want to optimize your resume, think about who you’re optimizing it for. A person! Where is someone’s eye drawn when they first see your resume, are you clearly explaining not only what you did in a role but the impact you had, and lastly does your resume highlight the qualifications needed for the role.”
Asia Forest Recruiting Professional
The Great Resignation/Future of Work Culture: Addressing Resume Gaps
The future of work is still somewhat… unsolidified. The Great Resignation is still changing workplace culture in real-time. Now more than ever, it’s common for workers to take career breaks for reflection, refocus, or personal reasons. The only thing that is certain in future workplace trends? Life happens. So how do you address these gaps? Talk about how you used your time. Did you learn any new skills? Are you re-energized by a new industry or role? Are you more motivated than ever to rejoin a team? Hiring managers would rather work with someone who’s hungry and eager than someone who is just moving from one role to another. Andrea Logan, Career Coach recommends blurring the gap and highlighting the work you have been doing unpaid.
“For everyone out there who has HUGE or small gaps on their resumes and can't get a Recruiter or HR Manager to give you the time of day... Do this simple trick! Take a flick of the wand and STOP PUTTING THEM! Instead of saying you’ve been out of work, put that you’ve been doing freelance or contract work in your industry (freelance & contract work doesn't show up on background checks).”
Andrea Logan Career Coachrand
Andrea then recommends adding the tasks you’ve been doing and skills you’ve been learning under those freelance or contract positions. “Just because you may have not been getting a physical "check" doesn't mean that you haven't been working hard, gaining skills, networking, or utilizing complex problem solving daily.”