How to tailor your resume
I’m going to be blunt here so hang on tight. If you apply for a job that makes no sense and you don’t explain why it makes sense for you, it’s over. It sounds awful, but the truth is no hiring team and no recruiter is good enough to guess why your completely out of touch resume (for this role) is right for this job.
It’s up to you, the candidate, to help guide us there. It’s not easy. It’s hard for a recruiter or hiring manager to think too far out of the box when they have an open role and it’s not because they don’t want to. We have a need, typically it’s a need we’ve had for a long time but figured out work arounds without it until finally we couldn’t. And now we need someone and we need someone yesterday and we need someone who we can “drop and go” with. Along come the resumes, and let’s say there’s 50 of them and 10 have 75-99% of what we believe we’re looking for. It’ll be nearly impossible for you to get us to notice your resume that (on paper) makes no sense.
Here’s what you can try to do to help guide us there:
Write a profile;
What this means is make the opening paragraph of your resume speak to your skill set that can work with this role. This section is a 3-5 line spot where you can pitch yourself for the role. Pick the important pieces of your expertise/experience that are relative to this role. Be done with the ”objective”, that’s for high school students looking for work.
Reorganize your job briefs on your resume to highlight the pieces of your experience that most closely relate to this role or that can bring value to a role like this.
Language – adjust the language in your resume and profile to match the language of the job overview it will help catch the reader’s attention much more quickly. Even if that’s not the word you called it at your company, if it’s the same thing, use the language this new company uses.
Cover letters– I can’t believe I am saying this because anyone who’s ever met me knows I despise cover letters. But here’s my one exception with cover letters, if your resume makes no sense to the role you’ve applied for I take a quick peek at your cover letter to try and get some context. However, let me be very clear, this is the final touch not the only touch. You must do step 1-3 and then add on 4. If it’s 4 alone that’s not enough.
If a hiring team sees an out of place resume with no context I can promise they don’t have the time or know how to figure out why you’re right for this role. Even the best recruiters in the business can’t read your mind and don’t have the time to call every candidate to learn their intentions.
I can’t promise you’ll get the role, but I can say your likelihood of actually being considered will go up exponentially the more effort you put into these adjustments. It’s up to you to stand out.