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Feature Article

An Easy, Effective Way to Make Your Resume Stand Out

Conducting an unfocused job search is one of the biggest mistakes people make when job searching, and a general resume that has not been created for a specific job is the first thing that gives employers the impression that you may lack focus.

In order to stand out from the crowd, you absolutely must have a specific resume for each and every job you apply to. You may have heard this advice before, but surprisingly few people follow it, so it's an extremely easy way to stand out from the competition. While you may be able to get away with avoiding some job search best practices in good economic times, in a competitive labor market, it's crucial to use every strategy you have at your disposal.

In a labor market that's not particularly competitive, you may consider simply creating a resume for each job title that interests you. So, for example, if you were qualified to work as a teacher and a counselor, and there were plenty of teaching and counseling jobs available, you could probably get away with creating two resumes - one teaching resume and one counseling resume.

In a tough labor market, I'm suggesting that you take this advice even further and create a new resume for each and every job you apply to. So, if you wanted to apply for three different jobs: one as an adult education teacher, another as an elementary teacher and a third to work as an early literacy specialist, that one teaching resume wouldn't be enough to cover all three jobs. If you really want to stand out from the crowd, you'll create separate resumes for each of those three jobs and structure each resume in a way that best highlights your qualifications for each specific job.

How to Write More Specific, Focused Resumes

I'll use the three teaching-related jobs noted above so I can provide a few examples. Please don't assume this information is only relevant to teaching jobs (it's just a random example I've selected); you can apply this concept to any type of job you might be seeking.

Your Objective or Profile
State the exact job title in your objective or profile. If you are using a profile, highlight two or three skills that are related specifically to the job you are seeking. In the example above, you would highlight experience teaching adults for the adult education teacher job, experience working in the public school system for the elementary teaching job and experience working with very young children and their families for the early literacy specialist job.

This approach is very different from simply writing a profile that describes your teaching skills in general. It creates a much stronger first impression for employers.

Your Skills and/or Accomplishments
If you are writing a combination resume and have a skills or accomplishments section, adjust those to fit the job. Be sure to include the skills and accomplishments that are most relevant to the specific job you are seeking, and put the most impressive and most relevant skills and accomplishments at the top of your list.

For example, the professional skills section in a generic teaching resume would contain a list of about six to eight of your most important teaching-related skills. A resume written specifically for a job as an adult education teacher would include many of the same skills listed in a generic teaching resume, but the skills would be stated in a way that highlighted the fact that your students were adults, and any points specifically related or important to teaching adults would become the first couple of points on your list of skills.

Your Work Experience
The same is true for the work experience section of your resume. A generic teaching resume would list job duties and or accomplishments that are generally related to teaching. To make the resume more specific to a particular type of teaching job, phrase each point in a way that highlights skills and experiences that are related to teaching a specific group of students, and order the points so the most relevant points come first.

Creating specific resumes for each and every job you apply to may sound daunting. It doesn't have to be. There's a very simple way to create job specific resumes.

Create a Base Resume
Simply create a base resume that contains all of your skills, accomplishments and experiences. Don't worry about whether a point is relevant. At this stage, if it's a marketable skill, include it in your base resume. Also, don't worry too much about formatting at this stage. Simply create a list of bullet points; don't be concerned about the way things fit on the page. This process requires some work at the outset, but it will make it very easy for you to put together all kinds of job specific resumes as you discover different job leads.

Your base resume will probably be a fairly long document by resume standards. My own is four pages long, and I add to it from time to time as I acquire new skills, work experience and accomplishments.

Of course you will never send your base resume out to an employer. No one will read a resume that is so long and unfocused. Instead, you'll open up your base resume each time you want to apply for a job. Go through your skills, accomplishments and experiences and choose the ones that are most relevant to the particular job you are seeking. Include those on your more specific resume. Arrange your points so the most relevant ones are first, and consider slightly re-wording any points that may need to be made more relevant to the particular job you are seeking.

Creating a specific resume for each and every job may sound like a lot of work. Granted, it is more work than the average job seeker will commit to; however, creating a base resume will reduce the amount of work required, and you don't want to be seen as the average job seeker. You want employers to see you as a remarkable, outstanding candidate who is just the right person for their company. A highly targeted resume will go a long way to create that impression.