Resume Samples
1000+ Resume Templates in Word and PDF format.
1000+ Resume Templates in Word and PDF format.
A resume is perhaps the most important document in your job search process. It is no less than a self-marketing tool but can every resume make it up to secure an interview? Unfortunately, not! If not, then what is it that separates a resume from a job awarding resume? Well, it’s the design or layout or template of your resume that can have a make or break impact on your job application process.
Whether you are an experienced professional or a fresher, it is crucial to have a look at the resume samples specifically designed for the job titles prevailing in your industry. If you will search, you’ll find hundreds of resume samples to choose from. Select the best out of them, customize it with respect to your details, including all the relevant information and double proof-read it to avoid any mistake.
Below is the detailed version to create various sections of a resume including resume service statement, educational qualification, work experience, and achievement &skills section.
A resume is not that simple to create as it seems. There are certain important points that need to be considered while creating a job awarding resume. However, these points differ depending on your industry and the job vacancy. Give due importance to the nature of prospective employers, your work experience, skills and certifications, awards and accomplishments, etc.
For example, a Marketing Personnel would like to highlight his work experience on his resume, while a Project Manager would like to add certifications to his resume. Similarly, a fresher applying for an entry-level job would like to highlight his educational accomplishments and GPA, while an experienced candidate would just fill in the relevant degrees in the educational details section and would like to highlight his skills and accomplishments from his previous jobs.
However, there are some basic sections that every resume would have, irrespective of all the different variables. Such sections can be summarized as
Apart from deciding what information to include in your resume, you should also decide as to which resume style you should go for. Which among the three basic resume styles would work best with respect to your work experience and employment history: chronological, functional or hybrid?
A Chronological resume is the resume style wherein your work experience is listed in chronological order. If you don’t have any employment gap and have followed a traditional employment path, this style is perfect for you to go for.
Functional resumes are the resumes that focus on your skills and experience, rather than on your chronological work history. It is generally used by job seekers who frequently changed their career, have employment gaps or even in cases where the work experience is not directly related to the job post. This resume style highlights specific skills and capabilities.
Hybrid resumes are prepared by combining the features of the chronological resume and functional resume formats. Though it satisfies the requirement for timelines, yet it is built with ability focus topics showcasing your marketable skills and impressive accomplishments.
Select a resume style that you would like to go for. Be careful to not select any random style but the one that represents your experience, resume content:
Well, nothing works better than a customized and relevant resume. Read the job description carefully and try to understand what kind of candidate they are looking for. Highlight the skills, experience, education, etc. that can help you establish your candidature as ideal. Organizing the resume content by highlighting the selling points, will help you create a job-winning resume.
Find a free resume template that represents your information in the best possible manner. A good template can be a boon for you to finally create a resume of your own. It assists you with resume preparation and ensures that no detail, not even the slightest, is overlooked. You now don’t need to focus on petty things like formatting, fonts, margins, etc. but can concentrate on the more important things, that is, the job search itself.
You will be surprised to know, but the employers barely gaze at a resume for no more than a few seconds. If your resume can make an impact in these few seconds, you have already won half the battle. Write a succinct summary statement and set you apart from the crowd.
This is a section that needs to be taken special care of. There are three types of resume styles, chronological, functional and hybrid, all representing work experience into different ways.
If you decide to go for a chronological resume, you need to follow the reverse pattern of listing the jobs, with your most recent position at the job. However, it should be noted that the most recent job is not always the most relevant job! With a chronological resume, you might end up having the most relevant experience lying at the bottom of work experience section. For each job experience, mention your designation, company name and employment period. Mention your responsibilities, awards, and accomplishments in the position. Include words that have been used in the job description shared by the employer. In order to have an edge over other candidates, mention your responsibilities in bullets and quantify your accomplishments.
In case you want to go for a functional resume, then split your work history into subheadings without including the period of work experience. The main motive of a functional resume is not to highlight your past jobs but to highlight your career accomplishments and skills. You need not specify the dates or responsibilities handled at each and every position. This will help you cover any employment gap or irrelevant experience.
Below is a comprehensive list of action verbs that can make your work experience look more expressive and impactful:
Showcase all your unique attributes and skills that give you an edge over other candidates applying for the same job position. Make a list, review it well and include only those that are applicable to the job you are applying for. If you possess any of the skills mentioned in the job description, be sure to highlight them.
It is not only the technical skills or expertise that makes you a good candidate for any role but what soft skills you possess also matter. This might include confidence, leadership skills, determination, etc. This is the best section to include any skill that you have but aren’t relevant to the job you are applying for. But ensure to not unnecessarily lengthen the resume because of mentioning such skills.
Some recruiting professionals advise not to use templates as it makes your resume look generic and doesn’t help you stand apart from the crowd. However, that’s not completely true. That is true only if you are using the template as it is, without making any changes to the template.
Using a template can ease out things from many perspectives but you need to customize it as per your set of qualification, experience, skills, abilities, and accomplishments. Don’t use templates as a method to spoon feed you rather, use them as inspiration to draft your own unique and original resume.
Education plays an important role while crafting your resume. Before writing the ‘Education Section’ of a resume, do proper research about your industry. Some technical roles might require specific technical certifications along with the degree while the other scores might only need the applicant’s degree.There are many such jobs that might even need
There are many such jobs that might even need a license. So, all you need to do is, just go through the job description, jot down all your experience ad classification and filter them later by importance and relevance.
There might be some items that seem important to you but can be left while drafting the resume. For e.g. If you are in college, it is assumed that you already have a high school degree and thus, need not be included in your resume. However, the same rule doesn’t apply to higher degrees, if you own any. Even if you have completed your Ph.D., don’t skip mentioning your undergraduate degree. Be sure to highlight your most recent degree prominently. As a general rule, focus on the most recent achievements and experiences.
If the references are specifically requested in the job post, include them or else, keep a list of references ready with you but don’t include. Though there is no harm in mentioning the references, even if not requested, but why to get the valuable space occupied in your resume by references when you can use it to mention your unique selling points.
For References, choose a person who knows you well and can speak well about you. Your direct manager would be a perfect option. However, as a courtesy, always inform the references before listing their information.
A poor formatting can ruin the essence of the most eligible resumes. Go through the features of Microsoft Word well and apply them in the resume. Learn how to remove blank pages from the resume, remove author name and copyright notice, modify header, footer, margin, paragraph spacing, margin, font, bullets, and customized tabs, spell check, convert to pdf, etc.
Create the file compatible with MS Word, for most of the Word files work with Mac Pages, Google Docs and OpenOffice too.
If your resume design has a colored background, print it on a high quality colored paper. In case you need borderless printing, change the printer setting and go ahead with printing.
We all pay so much attention to the resume creation but at times, there are some common mistakes that occur. Let us have a look at the ways to avoid such mistakes:
At times, the spell check ditches. Yes, it does! Sometime, it corrects the words in a way that its overall context is changed altogether. Thus, it’s better to proof read your resume twice before actually totally depending upon the spell error check. Here is a tip! Reading aloud your resume, before actually sending it, will help you catch any error that you might have made.
Be as specific in your resume as possible. The recruiters are only concerned with the relevant skills and not in the theoretical statements showing how good you are as a candidate. Customize your resume with the words and phrases mentioned in the job post. Some recruiters deploy automated resume readers that look for the key terms mentioned in the job description and often discard resumes that don’t contain them.
You might have some latest certifications that you must be proud of but if it is less relevant to the job you are applying for, there is no need it to appear on your resume. In case you decide to show it in your resume, it should be at the bottom of the skills section.
Now that you have created a great resume, become its critic. Look at the format and ask yourself questions related to the resume. Like, Is this the best free resume template? Should I even go for 1? Are my most relevant talents easy to read? Is everything falling in a row? In case you are not sure, go back to the resume samples you started ad use them.