What a Resume Should Include: A Complete Guide for 2023 Resumes

First time finding a job, and you don’t want to mess things up? Do you want to know what a resume should include?

Resumes are the first contact between an employer and its prospective employees, so it becomes imperative for them to be catchy, meaty, and punchy. It’s common knowledge nowadays that most recruiters spend anywhere from 6-10 seconds scanning your resume before they decide if it’s worth keeping or not.

A resume is important to an employer. Unfortunately, most resumes don’t even make it past the minimum requirements, which is basically why some applicants receive a rejection letter immediately after they submit their resumes. Hence, a need to know the proper way to write a resume with work experience.

One recent survey found out that 40% of employers now use the Applicant Tracking System (ATS), an automated recruitment software that sort and select resume as the first step before deciding if the applicant is worth the shot.

What a Resume Should Include: What You Need To Know

Consequently, it becomes imperative to check, to discuss the basic ingredients needed to make a good resume:

Keywords:

Most applicants choke their resumes with irrelevant things to appear bulky, large, or attractive. Great resumes always contain some basic words that mirror the language in the job description and the field of specialization you are applying for.

By doing this, you are one step closer to the job because doing this will not only help your document scale through the ATS hurdle but prove to the resource person that you know the basic requirements of the job.

So, instead of padding your resume with junks of irrelevant information, use keywords that are specific to the job you’re looking for (while, of course, backing it up with relevant experience), and you’re one step closer to the job of your dream.

Easy to Read:

Your resume should not be an avenue to show your grammatical prowess or might. Resumes are meant to be simple, straightforward, and easy to read. Trying to impress the recruiter with big grammar might lead to a series of errors, which will definitely not create a good impression with the recruiter and automatically disqualify your resume because it will not pass the ATS benchmark.

Common mistakes like full stops, comma, and others will make your resume look outdated, archaic, amateurish, and will not pass the first test. It won’t be very reassuring and turn off the recruiter. They won’t bother reading it further because there are many serious applicants with good resumes waiting to be attended to.

When you’re creating your resume, the content should be your priority because that will sell you to the recruiter. After that, you must try your best to arrange it so that it will appeal to the recruiter, even if the person is in a hurry or extremely busy.

Your resume should be catchy, in the sense that it must attract the recruiter’s attention because there are many resumes to attend to.

The Right Length:

One of the biggest problems with resumes is the size. Although there is no standing rule on how bulky your resume should be if you have less than ten years’ experience, it is advisable to keep it under 1 page and two pages if you have more.

You must understand that recruiters are facing a difficult job trying to sort the best person for the job and will be happy if they are faced with short resumes that are not filled with frivolities but concise, straightforward, short, and are straight to the point.

Although cases like executive positions can take more than two pages, always try to make it as short as you can. Don’t be scared to leave out irrelevant things; a brief CV does not mean disqualification. It will even boost your chance of securing the job.

Conclusion

Before now, resumes are littered with Goals/Objectives, but they are gradually falling out of place and being replaced by a well-articulated summary.

A summary of one or two summaries at the top of your resume can be a very powerful tool to capture the attention of your reader and signal to them right away that you are a perfect fit for the position in contention.

Most objectives are always centered on your goals in life and what you are looking for in your next working environment, without effectively stating why you are perfect for the job.

On the other hand, a summary will briefly layout your area of expertise, skills, experience, and what you can offer your next employer if they hire you.

A good summary is extremely helpful because it will tell the recruiter in one or two sentences what you can do, your competencies, and brief the reader on your skill set, what you can bring to the table, which is way different from the information embedded in the goals and objective.

I hope you now know what to do to get your first job, since you now know what a resume should include, go-ahead to include them.