What Does a Good Resume Look Like? And How to Make One Now!

What Does a Good Resume Look Like? And How to Make One Now!

This post shows you what a good resume should look like; the features it should have to make it good enough to be picked by prospective employers among hundreds of others; and how to make one for your job hunting success.

It also provides direction to lots of resume examples that you can use as templates when making your own.

Now, let’s get started by first looking at what a resume is:

What is a resume?

A resume is a document employers would usually want to see to tell them whether an applicant is qualified and suitable for the job they have available or not.

It contains information about the job seeker’s experience, skills, and educational training that makes them perfect for the job.

A good resume is an important document you will need to have if you are looking for a job, as it can affect your been invited to an interview or not.

A well written resume can give you an appointment to an interview where you will be able to prove to the employer why they should hire you.

But a bad or ineffective resume will easily get lost among hundreds of others from other applicants and you will never have the opportunity to discuss how valuable you would be to employers even if you were actually the best person for the job.

That’s how important it is for you to have a good resume if you desire to improve your chances of getting a job in the competitive job market.

You can write a resume for yourself or work with a professional writer to do it for you. Whichever way you choose to prepare your resume, you should give it the very best of attention.

If you would like to learn how to write a good resume so you can do it by yourself, the tips we provide here and the sample resumes on this website will help you to achieve it.

Now, let’s see what a good resume must have:

What makes a good resume?

As someone seeking a job, you must see a resume as a marketing tool, which should get the prospective employer to give you an interview appointment.

Here are three things that make a resume so good that it gets the employer’s attention, which you should imbibe in writing yours:

• Must be compelling

The resume should be so compelling that anyone who reads it will like to have a chat with you. The statements in the resume should be carefully crafted to highlight your expertise, skills, and experience for the job.

• Must capture readers’ attention quickly

Your resume must get the attention of the person reading it as soon as they start reading it, else, they will lose interest reading it and dump it.

Employers don’t usually spend much time on a resume except the one that catches their attention.

Research shows that employers spend an average of ten seconds on each resume submitted to them, except those that appeal to them, which they spend more time reading.

This means that for your resume to get read, it must capture the attention of the reader as quickly as possible.

• Communicate value to the employer

When hiring, companies look for people who would bring solution or value to what they do. They don’t employ people for the sake of providing employment, rather, they look for people to help them solve a problem, or to reach a goal.

So, they search for people with the right skills, experience, and attitude for what they want to achieve.

Therefore, for your resume to gain the attention of employers, it must show that you understand exactly the solution the employer is expecting you to bring to the table, and that you have the capability to be effective on the job.

This is why resumes made specifically for an employer are more effective than those for general purpose.

To write a resume for a position in a known company, you will have to do some research about the company to know the areas they are concerned about with regard to the position.

Sometimes, the job description of the available position that goes with the vacancy advertisement can be a source of information about what’s important to the employer that they want to hire people for.

Knowing this will help you to address those concerns by highlighting in your resume those skills, experience, and training that will enable you to efficiently fix them.

• Divided into few sections

A good resume is one that is properly organized to immediately catch employers’ attention. To achieve this, the entire document should be broken up into few sections, with each section providing the relevant information to help employers properly assess your suitability for the job.

For the fact that employers receive lots of applications and resumes from job seekers when a vacant position is advertised, they will usually spend a few minutes on a resume.

Using a resume format with few sections that present the best information that the employer is looking for to convince them that you are the best person for the job will do a better job of getting you an appointment for interview.

Such resumes will get the attention of the reader faster and keep them reading to the end, than presenting a resume with large and irrelevant content that only bores the reader.

We have observed that the resume format with four sections, namely: objective statement, core competence, work experience, and educational qualification work great in conveying job seekers’ suitability for a job to employers.

Now, let’s see how to create these sections when writing a resume for any position:

How to Make a Good Resume

As it has been said earlier, a good resume is one that makes a great impact on employers, impressing it on them that you are the right person for the job for them to want to discuss further with you in an interview.

Simply put, a great resume is one that can give you an interview appointment where you will have the opportunity to prove your worth.

So, how do you write a great resume?

To have a high impact resume, each of the sections must be well produced to clearly communicate your competence, experience, and other attributes that are important to being able to excel on the job.

Let’s look at how to write these sections:

Objective Statement

The objective should not just be to state the job title like in some resumes out there. That will not make any impact on the employer as they already know the position they are hiring for.

Your objective statement should seek to sell your competence and your ability to be highly effective on the job.

It presents an opportunity to win the heart of the employer right from the beginning of the resume by letting them know that you understand their major needs as the person they are looking for, and then present your core competence that will enable you to effectively meet those needs.

If you get your objective statement right, you can be sure that the employer will continue reading the resume and will like to chat with you in an interview, but if not done well, you could lose the reader’s attention right here.

Now, let’s take an example of both a bad objective statement, which you should avoid writing and the good one that you should copy.

Let’s suppose you are writing a resume for the post of a babysitter (you can actually see a sample babysitter resume here):

The bad objective statement that some people write is something like:

“Seeking the position of a babysitter.”

Like we said earlier, this kind of objective statement is not good enough to capture employers’ attention.

To write a better statement read through the employer’s advert content for the position or the babysitter job description provided.

You will be able to find the major area for which the employer needs a babysitter, and then you can match your skills, experience, and other relevant attributes to meeting the needs.

This will surely get the employer’s attention and they will want to discuss the prospect of you working with them further with you.

So, here is a better objective statement you can produce:

“Seeking to work as babysitter where my exceptional ability to multitask, communicate, and work with children to the satisfaction of their parents will be fully employed.”

See more examples of objective statements from sample resumes on this website.

The next section to write is the competence section that shows employers that you have what it takes to get the job done effectively.

The Core Competence Section

Coming next to your objective statement is the core competence section where you need to sustain your reader’s interest in reading your resume by showing them the skills and other qualities you have that will enable you to be efficient and effective on the job if employed.

You will need to take a look at the job description the employer published for the position to know the competence they are looking for.

Where they did not publish the job’s competence, you can search for it online to have an idea of what’s important to employers.

We have lots of job description templates, containing skills and attributes for various occupations on this website that you can use in making your resume, and ensure that your core competence section has information that tallies with what the employer is interested in for the advertised role.

For example, the core competence part of a babysitter resume can read:

• Possess 5 years experience working with and having fun with children
• Excellent skills at communicating with children and getting along with them
• Knowledge of child safety measures; ability to adhere to them always, and excellent skills to implement them when necessary
• Excellent customer service skills to ensure clients are well satisfied
• Exceptional ability to perform multiple tasks, including running errands for clients.

Again, you can find more examples of the core competence section, and learn how to make one for your resume, from the various resume templates we have on this website.

The next section will be where you need to show that you have performed or are currently carrying out similar role with another organization as the position you are applying for.

The Work Experience Section

For your resume to have the power that it needs to get employers glued to it and to be convinced that you are the right person for the job, it needs to have a professional experience section that highlights similar duties and responsibilities that you have previously carried out or are doing presently.

Employers are more comfortable hiring someone with adequate experience on the job because such persons are not prone to making certain costly errors which are usually associated with workers without experience.

An experience worker will also be more efficient and effective on the job because they know exactly what to do, and so will be able to cut wastages of time and other resources.

If you don’t have experience yet to put in your resume, you can emphasize a related project you did to complete a training program, or your activities while working as an intern.

To make this section, use verbs in past tense to describe the duties you performed in the past, that is, what you did for past employers, while you use present tense for the tasks you are currently performing.

For example, the work experience section for previously held positions can look like this:

The Johnson Family, JTown, Atlanta, 2010 – 2015

Babysitter

• Provided friendly and fun-filled experience to children and members
• Provided adequate registration and ensured children and parents are properly checked-out
• Ensured safety of children by watching and caring for them
• Provided frequent communication with children
• Initiated arts and crafts projects and games to engage children and task their creativity
• Changed children’s diapers and kept them clean always.

Notice that the description of the job above are stated in past tense, meaning you did those tasks in the past from 2010 to 2015 with the Johnson family, which has added to your work experience.

If you are presently on a job, your work experience, that is, the duties you are performing will have to be described in present tense to show you are still working in that position.

For example:

The Brandon Family, RexTown, New York, 2015 – Present

Babysitter

• Assist in cleaning up and meeting children’s toileting needs
• Feed babies on their bottles and assist older children with their feeding needs following instructions from parents
• Ensure safe environment by keeping sharp and harmful items away
• Monitor children’s movements and keep them calm
• Ensure children’s toys are cleaned and sanitized.

Those are the ways you can create your resume’s work experience section. Depending on the level of your professional experience, you can state both past and current positions in your resume as long as they are relevant to the position you are writing the resume for.

See various sample resumes to see more examples of the work experience section and learn how to write it well in your resume.

The Professional Qualification Section

The part of a resume that usually comes last is the professional qualification section, which provides information about the applicant’s educational background, including continuing educational programs, special training programs, and certifications they’ve had, which make them qualified to work in the position they are applying for.

So, make sure to state all relevant professional qualifications that you have completed that make you suitable for the job.

Conclusion:

This post has shown you what a good resume looks like and how you can actually write one for yourself and stand a great chance of being called to an interview.

Remember that your resume is a sales tool that should convince employers that you are the best person for the job and so give you the opportunity of an interview where you can complete the sales process and get the job.

Therefore, you need to give writing your resume a great deal of attention so that you can come up with one that will make a strong impact on employers.

Use the tips we have shared here, as well as study the tons of resume examples  on this website, and you too will be able to prepare a great resume each time you need one.

Resume Examples / Samples / Templates

Learn how to write good resumes by studying various resume templates prepared by professionals.

Discover how to create each of the sections of the resume to make them irresistible to prospective employers and hiring managers by adopting the format of the samples below:

Receptionist Resume Example
Cashier Resume Example
Physical Therapist Assistant Resume Sample
Certified Nurse Assistant Resume Example
Cabinet Maker Resume Example
Mail Carrier Resume Example
Line Cook Resume Sample
Housekeeper Resume Example
EMT Resume Example
Concierge Resume Example
Correctional Officer Resume Example
Production Worker Resume Example
Entry Level Medical Assistant Resume Example
Certified Medical Assistant Resume Sample
Small Business Owner Resume Example
Music Teacher Resume Example
Math Teacher Resume Example
Home Health Aide Resume Example
Customer Service Representative Resume Example
Housekeeper Resume Example
Hostess Resume Example
Pharmacy Cashier Resume Example
Construction Worker Resume Example
Teacher Assistant Resume Example
Business Owner Resume Example
Business Owner Resume Writing Tips and Example
Cocktail Server Resume Writing Tips and Example
Carpenter Resume Writing Tips and Example
Finance Assistant Resume Writing Tips and Example
Teacher Resume Writing Tips and Example
Barback Resume Writing Tips and Example
Nanny Resume Writing Tips and Example
Pharmacy Clerk Resume Writing Tips and Example

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