As someone who's hired entry-level grads all the way up to C-suite professionals throughout my 4 years at a British recruitment firm and another 2 years right now as an APAC recruiter, here's what I'd tell you about what I look for in a resume / CV. And yes it is indeed true that recruiters really don't spend more than 10 seconds reviewing any resume.

1. Good formatting and a professional ‘voice’. Is your resume easy to digest at first glance? Does it communicate maturity, professionalism, and earnestness?

2. Keywords as they relate to your field of specialization. Does your resume carry the kind of phrases and terms that proudly showcase a relevant background and productive or high-impact career?

3. Evidence of success. Did you list your key results, achievements, or successes? Doing so is 10x more powerful than merely describing your work responsibilities in a CV. Never just tell an employer what you did in your career history, emphasize how good of a job you did or how outstanding you were relative to the team.

4. Solid branding. Have you worked with a strong list of top employers in the past? Hiring managers tend to take comfort in hiring candidates who come from a string of other multinationals.

5. Career stability. Are the dates in your resume easy to figure out in a split second? Because employers are going to want to work out how long you’ve spent at each employment.
Accessibility and visibility. Do you make it easy for hiring managers to contact you immediately for a phone screen or interview? Will they be satisfied with what they discover from your LinkedIn presence?

On the topic of cover letters...

If you already have one written, no problem. Go ahead and send it in. But what if you don’t? Well worry not. Turns out nobody – not HR, nor hiring managers – read cover letters anymore.

But why not read a cover letter and take that into consideration as part of a candidate’s application, you ask? Well, the sheer volume of applications that come through for each vacancy makes it extremely time-consuming for recruiters and hiring teams to filter if they have to peruse cover letters in addition to resumes.

Secondly, ATSs are designed to assign a job match score to every resume and automatically eliminate resumes that don’t have sufficient relevant keywords to what the hiring team is looking for in a particular role. In other words, all that matters in every application you submit is how solid of a CV or resume you have in relation to relevant keywords.

Now what if there were more to your resume that you wanted to show and explain to potential employers? My best advice is to get professional help doing so in your resume itself.

My second best advice is to supplement a traditional application by actively reaching out to the decision-makers through non-conventional channels such as employee referrals, LinkedIn or emails. Learn to repurpose your cover letter into impactful messages that you can use to target the hiring team and stand out effectively.

So the next time you find yourself worrying over a cover letter, just stop already. It doesn’t matter whether you actually have one or not. Focus instead on perfecting the resume and actively networking to dramatically increase your odds of landing an interview.

Here is how you might be able to repurpose your cover letter into a short and high-impact message that you can send to hiring managers/recruiters:

https://www.careersifu.com/writing-effectiv...-sell-yourself/

You're on the right track already if you're scratching your head wondering how to craft a career summary. Every word in your resume needs to add value. If you find yourself struggling to craft the perfect career objective to open your resume with, stop already. Most of what you’re writing is useless fluff that you read off other crappy resumes.

Instead of a career objective, begin your resume by summarizing for the reader what they are about to learn about you in the next few seconds.

Use bullet points or short paragraphs.

State your combined years of experience in job function across the kinds of industries you’ve been in.

Next, provide a high-level snapshot of your key achievements, awards, and specific areas of expertise.

The trick once again is keyword optimization for better Applicant Tracking System (ATS) ratings. Are you able to identify the top 3-5 critical skills or experience required for this role from the job description? Mention them in your career summary.

Recall that up to 75% of CVs don’t ever get read by human eyes due to increasingly sophisticated robots that power these ATSs. Resumes need to have at least an 80% match to the job in order to filter through to actual recruiters or hiring managers.

GXFC everybody!!! I've been recruiting for the past 7 years in Malaysia and later on, the APAC region (both agency-side and in-house), and started a resume editing and interview coaching side hustle about a year ago for fun.

Every single day I see poorly written resumes/CVs, or sparse LinkedIn profiles that do little to highlight why a recruiter should even write to you, and realised - nobody really teaches any of us how to game the job application process, how to stand out from hundreds of applicants to a Jobstreet or LI ad, how to write high-impact resumes, or how to crush an interview, or why you should never take the first offer you're given (and how playing your cards right could result in a 50% improvement on your first offer that dramatically compounds over a lifetime).

Covid has also meant that we now get double or triple the number of applications for every role or vacancy available. Standing out has never been harder...

I've been compiling job application, resume / LI writing, interview, and salary negotiation tricks here for free so go check it out for tips and advice that might help! https://www.careersifu.com/

Aaaaand so here's a deal for you, if you've been covid-hit / jobless for the past couple of months, or a fresh grad entering the worst possible job market in the past decade, or just want to supercharge your resume / LinkedIn profile, or you've been applying to countless jobs and not hearing back from anyone, hit me up!

Send your LI url to me, or email over your resume, and I'll do a free 10-min diagnosis of 3 things you're doing wrong right now and how to make it better. Hope to hear from you at careersifus@gmail.com