Here's How To Write A Killer Resume That's Gotten Me Dozens of Job Interviews and Job Offers

I’ve been reading a lot of resumes recently on Reddit and I myself struggled with writing resumes a few years ago (job interviews as well), but I wanted to write down a lot of what I’ve learned to put you way ahead of the game.

One thing to keep in mind is that everyone will of course have different advice on this topic and you might find ideas that clash. In that scenario, you just need to weigh up both pieces of advice and see what you think is right for your case scenario.

File Format

The first thing I wanted to discuss is the debate between submitting a resume as a PDF file vs a docx file. I’ve personally used a docx file for the most part and have gotten plenty of job offers. I’ve also used PDF files and gotten job offers, a lot of other people have either had one or the other experience.

The one thing with docx files is that your hiring manager might not have Microsoft Word on their computer so if they can’t open it, it’s going to put you at an obvious disadvantage. Whereas with PDF, it can open on both Chrome or Adobe. They probably have both.

The Right Resume Template

This is one that so many people get wrong. They think that they need to have a really good looking resume template.

This is COMPLETELY WRONG. When you have colour boxes, icons, profile pictures, multiple horizontal sections, and you upload your resume to a job post, it goes through the ATS system (which is basically a filter that scans your resume before the employer sees it), and when you have all that extra stuff on there, it’s unable to read your resume, which means your employer doesn’t see it, which obviously means you won’t get a job interview.

I didn’t want to go too in-depth on ATS here as it’s been talked about a lot but it’s one of the most important things that you need to know to land a job interview. Probably the most important. Make sure you do some research on this before you build your resume.

A simple black and white resume that has 1 column, going vertically is all you need. Here is an example below of a good vs bad resume that I got from Google.

https://resumeworded.com/bad-resume-examples-key-advice

A Professional Summary

Some people say you don’t need one, but I completely disagree. This is your chance to give a sales pitch and tell them in a summary why you’re the most qualified person for the role. This is also your chance to capture their attention and get them to read the rest of your resume.

You don’t want anything generic on here. Here is an example from my marketing resume that has gotten me a lot of job interviews and job offers. I’ll explain why it’s effective:

“I’m a paid ads specialist with 5 years of experience, having worked with 75+ service-based and eCommerce-based businesses including extensive experience in the fashion and retail niche.

I have a proven track record of delivering profitable results for my clients, having generated well in excess of $50,000,000 in revenue and having worked over 30 different industries.

Additionally, I’ve managed well over $1,500,000+ in ad spend per month across all my clients, with my highest client spending $850,000 per month.”

The reason the above is effective is because:

• The job title is for a “paid ads specialist”

• They require at least 3+ years of experience and I have more than that

• They wanted someone who specialises in working with eCommerce businesses which I did and I included the “fashion and retail” niche because they wanted someone who is experienced with those industries

• I wrote how much revenue I generated to make myself standout

• I included 30 different industries to show my diverse experience

• The job description wanted someone who can manage budgets of $30k per month, I’ve done well above that

Remember the golden rule. Make sure your professional summary revolves what they are looking for.

The Bullet Points On Your Resume

This is the other section that people get wrong on the resume. They write down tasks that they did at work instead of talking about outcomes they achieved or including some kind of numbers.

For example, people might write “Provided professional customer service” instead of “Provided world-class customer service to 150+ customers, weekly”, this looks much better

Your bullet points should look something like (if possible)

* Generated $X in revenue with X amount of time with via X channel / strategy

* Managed budgets over $X amount

* Reduced wait time from X minutes to X minutes by streamlining processes

* Delivered customers’ orders in under X minutes on average

* Reduced manual data input by X+ hours per day by implementing X

Remember this rule.

Every bullet point that is part of the job requirements on the job ad, make a bullet point on your resume that addresses the job requirement bullet point and make sure your bullet point talks about a relevant outcome that you achieved or attach some kind of number to it.

For example, if the job requirement is “someone who can lead a team of at least 5 people”, you would write something like, “managed a team of 25+ team members, having delivered 100+ successful projects…”.

That’s just an example above. Replace the numbers with what’s accurate to your last role. This makes you stand out a lot more as opposed to putting generic tasks that you performed at your role. The bullet point above lists numbers and addresses what they are looking for.

You could even put something like “Managed a team of 25+ team members & improved workplace efficiency by 35%”

Put Your Job Title Under Your Name

On your resume where your name is, it’s a good idea to put a job title that is ideally the exact same as the one on the job description or whatever is very close to it. This makes you look immediately qualified for the role.

For example, if the job description says “Customer Service Officer”, you put that exact title under your name if you worked in customer service, and if it’s applicable to your work experience.

Put Education On The Bottom Of Your Resume

This has also been talked about quite a bit. People say to put your education first if you’re a recent graduate which is fine but for most cases when you have a lot of relevant experience, you always want to put the experience section first. Here is how your resume should look like top to bottom:

Top:

• Personal details

• Professional summary

• Experience

• Projects (if you have any projects you worked on that are relevant to the role)

• Testimonials & case studies (this is not talked about much but it can really make you stand out if you provide a link to Canva for example which shows your achievements, I used this for marketing a lot)

• Education

Bottom:

Don’t Include Unnecessary Things

People have the habit of stuffing their resume with things that don’t matter. The thing is that your hiring manager wants to find the best fit for the role. Nothing more, nothing less.

This means many different things such as skills, personality, culture fit, mindset, etc. But there are things below which you don’t need to include and here is why:

– Skills (you don’t need a section on this because you should convey all of this on your bullet points and your professional summary. When you say something like your skills are: Programming, Excel, Word, Facebook ads, TikTok ads. This doesn’t mean anything and it doesn’t hold any weight.

– Interests / hobbies (absolutely not needed. Your employer doesn’t care that you like to go fishing on the weekend. You can talk about this stuff when you get the job. I’ve had employers ask me in job interviews what my hobbies are, you might have it happen to you as well. That’s a better time to talk about it. Save your hobbies for the interview if they bring it up or once you get the job.

A quick note. In the job interview when they ask you the question “tell me a little bit about yourself”, do NOT start talking about your hobbies.

That question is your only chance to sell yourself and talk about why you’re the best fit for the role. this will set the tone for the rest of the interview.

The answer to this question is where you set an impression. Get this wrong, and the whole interview will go down the toilet)

– Languages (sometimes people write down that they can speak multiple languages. This is useful if the role requires it or will be useful for the role, but if it isn’t, leave it off as it’s taking up space on your resume and gives you no advantage)

References on Request

Never put this on your resume. If they need references, they will request it. This is just taking up valuable real estate and gives you no advantage whatsoever.

Other small tips:

• When naming your resume file, name it as “Firstname-Lastname-Resume”

• Ignore advice that says “don’t make your resume longer than 1 page” this is false. You can’t fit everything on 1 page if you have 1-2 jobs on there, especially when you need to add in a few bullet points when you’re tailoring your resume. Not to mention, your professional summary.

• Don’t spam the same resume to every job. I keep seeing posts how people applied for 200+ jobs with no interviews. They probably used the exact same resume for every job posting. This doesn’t work, you HAVE TO tailor it if you want results.

• Don’t be lazy and use ChatGPT. AI is super overrated and it produces garbage results. All you will end up is with a generic resume that looks the same like every other resume. AI can’t tailor your resume effectively, we are a long way away from that.

• Remove irrelevant jobs where possible. You might be worried about the employer asking you about a “Gap” on your resume. Just simply explain “I had other jobs that I worked in-between but they weren’t relevant to the role so I wanted to make sure that I only included the most relevant experience”. This response will work fine.

Now if you have no relevant experience then leave it as something is better than nothing.

I’ve supplied part of my ATS-optimised resume template that I’ve used for a while which you can download as well: ~https://docs.google.com/document/d/15GBnyLoB8j9Ze_U5j9slBS28A4GR9WEztYczH7kyRdw/copy~

This here is a supplementation document which gives insights on why my sample resume is effective and it gives you ideas so you can build your next resume:

~https://docs.google.com/document/d/12t1NTwJI4y1O2PctBH5hqVuGgOFyk3rp_cmWFoVBmvs/copy~