When it comes to your career, your resume is one of the most important tools in your arsenal. It’s the only thing standing between you and a job interview. However, crafting a resume that truly impresses can be challenging. Don’t worry—this guide has you fully covered. This is why we’ve gone a little longer than usual this week.

Start with the Basics

Before you dive into the finer details, ensure you include all the essentials. The purpose of your resume is to provide recruiters with the key information they need to shortlist you for an interview. Make their job as easy as possible by clearly highlighting the points that demonstrate your suitability. These should stand out prominently so the recruiter doesn’t have to ‘deep-dive’ into the text to find them.

• Name: Use your official name as it appears on your ID. If you have multiple first and/or family names, use the combination you typically use in a professional context.
• Professional Photo: Use a photo with a neutral or slightly positive facial expression and attire that aligns with the standards of your industry. For example, in the insurance business, a suit and tie remain the norm, while for a plumber, such attire may be excessive. Avoid family photos, group shots, party photos, or images where you’re making funny faces—I’ve seen it all, and it doesn’t create the impression you want!
• Contact Details: Include your email, phone number, Line, Skype or other messaging IDs, LinkedIn profile URL, and place of residence.
• Headline and Summary: Similar to a LinkedIn profile summary, but strictly tailored to highlight how your profile matches the job description. Avoid generic summaries—focus on relevance.
• Education: List your highest attained degree or certification.
• Technical Skills: Highlight the skills required for the job.
• Work History (Reverse Chronological Order): For each role, include:
  • Timespan: Use a consistent format (e.g., YYYY/MM or MM/YYYY).
  • Job Title
  • Company Name: Include the website unless it’s a well-known name.
  • Location
  • Team Size: Particularly relevant for managerial positions.
  • Reporting Structure: Mention who you reported to (e.g., “Reported to the Director of Operations”).
  • Responsibilities and Duties
  • Achievements: Highlight results with metrics (e.g., “Increased annual revenue by 20%”).
  • Reason for Leaving: Keep it brief and professional.
• Certifications: List only those relevant to the job.
• Professional Awards & Accolades: Include any notable recognitions.
• Memberships: Mention your involvement in professional organizations.
• Publications & Speaking Engagements: Highlight relevant contributions like articles or notable events.
• Language Skills: Use a standardized framework such as CEFR to indicate proficiency.
• Hobbies: Include only those that reflect qualities relevant to the job. For example, team sports may highlight collaboration, endurance sports suggest perseverance, and creative hobbies reflect innovation. Read more on this topic here: How to Answer the Job Interview Question: ‘What Are Your Hobbies?’

By including all the above details in your resume, you can save valuable time during the interview. This extra time can then be used more productively—such as showcasing your abilities and highlighting how you’re the best fit for the role.

What to Leave Out

When it comes to your resume, less is often more. Including unnecessary details can clutter your resume and distract from your key qualifications. Here’s what you should leave out:

• Irrelevant Experience: Avoid listing every single task or achievement, especially those that lack a plausible link to the company or job description. As you progress in your career, leave out internships, summer jobs, or roles from the distant past—unless briefly mentioned for continuity.
• Cliché Adjectives: Words like “motivated,” “dedicated,” “proven,” “reliable,” “passionate,” “excellent,” “enthusiastic,” “team player,” and especially “hard-working” are overused and unverifiable. Instead, focus on showcasing your qualities through documented achievements and tangible examples. Let your experience speak for itself.
• Personal Information: Keep your resume strictly professional. Avoid including details about family background, children, parents, siblings, unrelated hobbies, or your home address. Such information may unintentionally provoke unconscious bias and distract from your qualifications.

By focusing only on relevant, actionable content, you’ll create a resume that stands out and speaks directly to the recruiter.

Format Your Resume Correctly and Outsmart the ‘Terminator’ AI

Nowadays, many companies use ATS (Applicant Tracking Systems), often powered by artificial intelligence, to handle the matching process for recruiters. To ensure your resume passes this automated screening, keep the following in mind:

ATS often struggles to process documents created using graphics software, as well as those containing tables or images. These elements can cause your resume to be rejected by the system. Therefore, you should focus on creating a clean, text-based resume that’s easy for ATS to read and parse.

The good news? Making your resume ATS-friendly doesn’t just benefit the AI—it also ensures that it’s easy to navigate for human recruiters. By sticking to ATS-compatible formatting, you’ll appeal to both machine and human reviewers alike.

Here Are the Main Do’s:

• Keep Your Name Consistent: Use the same name in your resume, LinkedIn profile, application, cover letter, email, and ideally all social media you may use to reach out to recruiters (WhatsApp, Line, etc.)
• Use Standard File Formats: Stick to widely accepted formats like DOC, DOCX, or PDF. If the company or recruitment agency provides specific formatting requirements, be sure to follow them.
• Choose Common Fonts: Use readily available fonts such as Arial, Calibri, or Times New Roman. Rare fonts might look great on your device but could render incorrectly on the recruiter’s, making your resume appear unprofessional.
• Organize Sections Clearly: Structure your resume into distinct sections with clear titles, such as Professional Experience, Education, Publications, and Certifications.
• Use Bullet Points: Opt for bullet points instead of free-flowing text to improve readability within each section.
• Include Full URLs: When adding links, type out the full URL rather than hyperlinking a word or logo to ensure accessibility.
• Maintain a Clean Design: Aim for a design that’s 5% black text and 95% white space to keep the layout clean and easy to read. You may add one accent color or a shade of gray to highlight specific elements if needed.
• Check for Errors: Use a spellchecker to ensure there are no typos or grammatical mistakes. While a minor typo might not result in rejection, attention to detail reflects your seriousness about the application.

And Here Are the Don’ts:

• Avoid Advanced Formatting: Do not use tables or multiple columns, as they may be difficult for ATS to read.
• Skip Fancy Colors and Graphics: These can distract recruiters and confuse ATS. Additionally, resumes are often printed in grayscale for interviews, making colors ineffective. Recruiters might also be annoyed by wasted toner or insufficient space for notes. (Exception: If applying for a creative role, like graphic designer or architect, a visually creative resume may be appropriate.)
• Keep It Concise: Limit your resume to 1-2 pages, which is optimal for most professionals.

Tailor Your Resume for Each Job

One size does not fit all when it comes to resumes. Every job you apply for will have unique requirements, so it’s essential to customize your resume to emphasize the experiences and skills most relevant to that specific role.

Begin by thoroughly reading the job description to identify key qualifications. Incorporate keywords and phrases from the job listing into your resume. Focus on highlighting the information that demonstrates you are an excellent fit for the position. This approach not only grabs the hiring manager’s attention but also increases your chances of passing through Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS).

You can simplify the process by using this technique:

1. Start with a Comprehensive Draft: Create a detailed version of your resume that includes all your previous experience, education, training, accolades, and other achievements.
2. Analyze the Job Description: Study the job listing thoroughly to identify all the requirements, keywords or phrases that recruiters may look for.
3. Remove Irrelevant Details: Eliminate anything unrelated to the job you’re applying for, including entire roles if necessary (e.g., a summer job selling ice cream after college for a mechanical engineer with 15 years of experience). However, if omitting a job would create a significant chronological gap, briefly include the role with just the date and job title for continuity.
4. Incorporate Keywords Thoughtfully: Integrate as many relevant keywords as possible, provided they align with your skills and background. Matching the language of the job description enhances your resume’s chances of standing out and passing Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS).

Use a Professional Resume Template

The easiest way to produce a solid resume is to start with a high-quality professional template. This will enable you to showcase your skills and experience effectively, making a strong impression on potential employers with minimal effort. The internet is full of rather useless, would-be fancy-looking templates cluttered with rubbish that are sold for prices up to $59. Just forget about them, save your money, and download my professional resume template for free here.

Don’t Forget a Cover Letter

While this guide focuses on resumes, remember that a strong cover letter can significantly increase your chances. Cover letters may not be as universally required as they once were but despite that, a thoughtfully crafted one can still make a powerful impression—particularly when it aligns your skills, experiences, and enthusiasm directly with the needs of the hiring company. For certain industries and roles, this extra effort may be what sets your application apart. The general consensus is that if an organization requests it in the job description, you should include one.

Read more here: Are Cover Letters Dead? (Incl. a Free Template)

Should You Hire a Professional Resume Writer?

Hiring professional resume writing services is an option worth considering. Prices can range from approximately $100 to over $1,000 per resume. However, since resumes need to be tailored for each job application, relying on a professional service for every submission can make your job search quite costly.

A more practical approach is to hire a professional once to create a comprehensive, detailed version of your resume. You can then customize it yourself for each job application.

When selecting a resume writer, choose carefully. Look for someone with several years of experience in recruitment to ensure they understand what recruiters and hiring managers look for. Surprisingly, many so-called professionals produce resumes with basic flaws—such as being overly wordy or using formatting elements that ATS (Applicant Tracking Systems) cannot process.

Be cautious about services offered by individuals who are not recruiters, such as copywriters or graphic designers. While they may create eloquent texts or attractive designs, they often lack the recruiter’s perspective. Their work may look polished but fail to meet the practical requirements of the hiring process.

Functional vs. Chronological Resume

When it comes to resume writing, there are two main formats to consider:

1. Chronological Resume: This format centers around your work history, listed in reverse-chronological order. It’s the standard and widely preferred format, as it clearly shows career progression and is easy for both human recruiters and ATS (Applicant Tracking Systems) to read.
2. Functional Resume: In this format, your skills take center stage. They are organized by theme (e.g., “Customer Service,” “Troubleshooting,” “Mentoring”) with specific examples of projects, tasks, or assignments that demonstrate your proficiency in each area. This approach is well-suited for individuals with non-standard work histories, career gaps, or those making a career pivot by emphasizing transferable skills.

Considerations for Functional Resumes: While functional resumes can be useful in certain situations, it’s important to understand their limitations:

• Many ATS struggle to process them due to unconventional section structures.
• Human recruiters may find them unfamiliar or time-consuming to navigate.
• Functional resumes don’t clearly show career timelines, which can create confusion or suggest you’re trying to conceal something.

To mitigate these drawbacks, include a brief work history section at the end of a functional resume to provide clarity and continuity.

Additional Benefits of Functional Resumes: Functional resumes can also serve as valuable tools for interview preparation. By compiling one, you’ll gain a clearer understanding of your skills and be able to recall examples of situations where you applied them—perfect for answering behavioral questions. Preparing this at home helps you avoid improvisation during interviews and boosts your confidence.

How to Write a Strong resume Even If You Don’t Have Much Experience

If you are just at the starting line of your career, I would advise that you include all your experience, even if it is not directly relevant to the role you are applying for, such as internships, volunteer work, part-time jobs you had whilst studying, leadership roles you held while at school, or even leisure activities like sports or other hobbies, as long as they can demonstrate your work ethic, transferable skills, and employability. Don’t forget to boost your skills summary – include all hard, soft, self-taught and transferable skills that may bear even the smallest significance regarding your future employment.

Should You Use Generative AI Tools?

Since ChatGPT and similar tools are essentially language models, working with text is one of their strengths. They can help correct spelling, grammar, punctuation, and make your resume look more professional. If you want ChatGPT to create your resume from scratch, make sure to provide all the essential information, and thoroughly review the output.

Be careful, though: These AI tools sometimes fabricate details (such as skills or achievements) that are not true just to make your resume appear better. That could seriously backfire. For more on this topic read here: Harness the Power of AI in Your Job Search II. (Plus 10 Best ChatGPT Prompts)

Conclusion

Crafting the perfect resume may take time and effort, but it’s an investment in your future. By following these steps and presenting yourself in the best light, you’ll increase your chances of securing that all-important interview.

And remember: Avoid sending outdated resumes or multiple versions to the same company. Doing so could make you appear inconsistent and less trustworthy to the recruiter.

If you really want to learn everything about crafting an impressive resume, be sure to check out my book, Get Your Dream Job.

Good luck!

You May Also Like:

• 5 Easy Tweaks for Maximum Resume Impact
• 5 Resume Mistakes That Will Land You in the Rejection Pile
• Explaining a Gap in Your Resume: 3 Easy Strategies That Always Work

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Do you need my personal assistance? Simply send me your resume and a link to your LinkedIn profile at vaclav@getyourdreamjob.co and I will come back to you!