So you guys, I just got featured on Lora Korpar‘s LinkedIn Newsfeed! This will mark my twenty-first time being featured as part of a LinkedIn News post. Here’s to more in 2022!
Please check out this fantastic article by LinkedIn as part of their weekly News’ Job Search & Careers editorials from Lora Korpar with our president, Matt Warzel, as a contributor – How to Write a Resume As a Career Starter
𝘔𝘺 𝘪𝘯𝘱𝘶𝘵:
“Always put education upfront if it’s an early career [resume], because most of the time that’s what they’re using as a lot of their arsenal for that experience or that transferability,” Warzel said.
Warzel also said career starters should be realistic about their career goals.
“Be pragmatic about what opportunities are in front of you that might be viable,” Warzel said. “Transferability is the key. Figure out what you’ve done that can be [comparable to] what the hiring team is expecting of a quality candidate.”
The resume should be visually appealing and concise. Warzel said no hard-and-fast rule on page count exists, but most entry-level resumes do not need to be long.
“I would just say don’t bore the person,” Warzel said. “If you have three pages, there better be some juice on page three… Maybe they got started with some sort of family business or managed to parlay a bunch of internships. But the majority of the time if you’re early-career, one page should suffice because the audience is not going to expect you to have too much coming at them.”
However, Warzel said the professional summary is the perfect place to advocate for yourself when you’re “clutching at straws” in the work experience section.
“A summary is a great way to tell the hiring team ‘Here’s my value offering,’ ‘Here’s why I’m worth paying every couple of weeks to do something and why I’m pretty darn good at it,’” Warzel said. “If you can get them to understand why you’re the Tylenol to their pain points, why you’re their problem-solver, in the least amount of words possible, they’re going to be interested.”
The skills section is especially important for those with limited experience. Mitler and Warzel said to pack a career starter resume with hard skills and sprinkle soft skills into other sections like work experience or the professional summary. The reader will look for skills more concrete than “strong communicator” if the experience section is lacking.
“If you’re going to talk about being a time manager, having great communication skills, that stuff is appealing, but you don’t need to make that a highlight like a hard skill has to be highlighted,” Warzel said.
Examine keywords in the resume and compare them to the job description. Ensure the top responsibilities listed in the description appear in the resume. And if the wording is different in the job description, tweak the resume to use the employer’s language.
“I’m a big advocate of reverse-engineering off of job descriptions,” Warzel said. “You want to start filtering in some of the jargon and tasks that they have on that job description.”
However, Warzel said to avoid copying and pasting the job description. Instead, focus on describing the outcomes you produced using the skills in the job description.
“Copy/pasting is boring, and it’s not personable,” Warzel said. “What was the cause and effect? Give me an outcome. Give me a little anecdote of how you were able to [use] these skills they’re trying to relate to. And now you can use that as a springboard during the interview because I always say you’re presenting the resume as a full meal and then the interview is when you talk about the ingredients.”
Warzel added that having a firm grasp of your career goals is vital to building an effective resume.
“Most people get a job, the lucky ones get a career and the very fortunate ones get a calling,” Warzel said. “And if you can just get to that career point, you can get more satisfaction in your life… Figure out what is motivating you personally and professionally, and then start to align how you can get to that point.”
Had to save some photos too! HUGE DEAL FOR ME!
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