As a professional, you must adapt your resume to suit different job applications given that each job/role has different characteristics. In many occasions, it is very difficult to evaluate what employers are looking for. So your best bet should be to focus on identifying key results for target roles? What kind of skills & experience potential employers are looking for in your resume? Once you know the outcome of resume, it is easy to structure your resume so that it portrays relevant information concisely & effectively.
Look out for key results
A great place to start is job advertisement. You should focus on giving most attention to essential & desirable skills paragraph since it tells about must haves in a particular candidate. In most cases these will be listed in order or importance so make sure that you have at least top 3 of those essential/desirable skills.
Also read the job description section carefully! You could easily find some hidden deliverables that you can use to focus on your resume. List down key outcomes you need to showcase on your resume. You should give specific reference to industry related keywords as well as soft skills such as leadership & communication.
Align your summary
Think of keywords in your resume that reflect what you have read in the job description. Focus on articulating what you can deliver & the financial benefits/commercial results organisation is looking for in your resume. Include most relevant skills & experience & highlight the relevant industry if you have worked in more than one sector/industry.
Align your professional experience
Try to find spaces where you can insert more related keywords. It is always possible to tweak the summary of each position you help. Focus on realigning/reordering bullet points of achievements, so that you match with the outcomes & skills required for that particular position. Make sure that result of each bullet point matches the requirement of the role. Highlight the most relevant achievements. For instance, you may have 8 achievements in your current role, however 3 of them are most relevant to them. So, it would be wise to highlight them & remove the least important or irrelevant one. You should focus on including not more than 5 to 7 bullet points for each position you have held.
Use similar Language
Focus on writing your resume in similar language within cutting or pasting whole section as mentioned in the job description. Give a clear indication that you have read the job description carefully without just copying.
Take out short term or early jobs
Take out your experience/jobs if they are taking much of your resume’s space or are not relevant to target role. If the past experience is negative, then it should not be on your resume. It is not necessary to include everything on your resume. You are not required to justify each & every part of your experience.
Align with target location
If you are applying for a role in a different city, make sure that you change the location to the target. In case you are applying for a job in a different country, the most effective way to get a call is to obtain a local number from that country- Skype or VoIP is best suited.
Research about the interviewer/decision maker
Try to do a basic research or find something common about interviewer/decision maker. Have you ever worked for same clients? Do you have common connection? Do you have a common hobby or passion? Inserting that little spark initially by showing something common with recruiter or line manager is great way of landing up interview.
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