How can you create a resume format that stands out for recent graduates?

There are diverse ways that we can learn to create a resume, but first, how can we learn to stand out as fresh graduates? We need to think on a strategic level. Where do we want to reach? What do we aspire to become? What are the skills needed to conquer the corporate world? Do we still need to undergo an internship? to complete a certificate or to simply volunteer? What is a project that we are proud of? What is needed to craft our professional journey? What are the companies that we want to be members of? Answering these questions will help us set a structured yet inspiring resume, for anyone to read and not to skip from the first 10 seconds.

When it comes to fresh graduates, the chronological resume tends to do wonders. Kick it off by showcasing your internships, any tools or software you're skilled in, the standout projects you've tackled, and of course, your qualifications.

When selling a penthouse condo, you can't highlight a yard—it simply doesn't have that feature! In the same way, when positioning yourself as a new graduate, emphasizing experience is a non-starter, as you're just starting out. Avoid the common misstep I see many of my new grad clients make, of opting for a Chronological resume. No employer cares that you bartended and served during college to make ends meet, so why use a chronological format focusing primarily on your work experience? It makes no sense. New grads need to embrace functional or "skills-based" resumes, clearly focusing their resume on transferable skills and recent education and how those match with the job advertisement.

A chronological resume format is recommended as this format is recognized by most Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS). A Chronological resume also helps recruiters to understand your career journey and may help identify other skills that may be relevant in previous work experiences, and demonstrate growth over time in your career. Furthermore, recruiters spend at most 6-10 seconds on a resume before deciding if they will continue reading. If they have to spend extra time trying to piece together the chronology of your work experience, they may become frustrated and bypass your resume.

If someone is a new graduate, unless you are going for a specialized degree, the education isn’t important unless there were certain awards or distinctions. The purpose of the resume is to get you interviewed, at which time you need to sell yourself. Why should I (as the hiring manager) call you for an interview? What internships, jobs, experiences might be beneficial to my team and organization? How will you fill my need? Make the resume stand out in professional manner possible.

Maximize white space. Use small margins so that you can take up more space with content. Don't overwhelm with content. Keep your bullet points to a max of 3-4. Don't get too wordy - it makes your resume seem boring and overwhelming. Organize it into easy-to-read to buckets. You got your About Me, Skills, Experience, Education, Organizations, etc. For students and recent grads, you want to put your Education before your Experience section. Since you don't have any full-time experience, your education is the most important consideration. After your first full-time job, you can move Experience first since that is now more relevant. Separate your technical skills from your competencies! This is easier for ATS systems to pick up.

Here's a resume tip that most applicants don't know about: ?????????? ???????????? ??????????????. Many Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) struggle with columns/tables. A simple format works best. More importantly, organize the order of your resume sections by ?????????????????? to the job: If your qualifications are primarily academic, lead with education. If you have impressive professional experience (from internships, jobs, or other work), prioritize this section instead. Leverage design elements (placement, formatting, graphics) to accentuate key details. Make them ?????? with metrics ($100M+, 95%). Limit paragraphs to 2-3 lines and sections to 5 bullets max for a clean look. Finally, research field-specific resume nuances.

It is important that you have an ATS friendly resume. Secondly, I agree to avoid clusters; less is more. What I see very commonly made mistake is poor utilization of space, and the prime estate of the resume is filled with insignificant information.

O currículo precisa ser sucinto, mas nem por isso você precisa economizar no conteúdo das suas realiza??es. Informa??es básica como nome, whatsapp, e-mail e url do perfil do LinkedIn s?o fundamentais. Idade, endere?o completo (informe apenas a Cidade/Distrito), estado civil s?o totalmente dispensáveis. Nacionalidade, informe somente se você estiver fora do seu país de origem. Fa?a parágrafos breves, 6 a 8 linhas, se atente à linguagem - n?o seja informal demais, e principalmente cuidado com erros de digita??o. Recomendo usar o corretor ortográfico para n?o escrever coisas inteligíveis.

Unobvious things to add to your resume 1?? Links to companies where you've worked. This will reduce the number of clicks for the hiring manager if they want to learn more about your experience and minimize the risk of them googling something incorrect. 2?? Brief company description. Describe the company in 6-8 words to emphasize the relevance of your experience and how awesome you are. For example: Top #1 marketplace in CIS, MAU > 53M Or: Fintech with revenue > 700M 3?? Links to certificates. If you've taken professional development courses or additional educational programs, add a link to your achievement, not just the course. Embed all links into the text, avoiding gibberish.

Make sure that you read the description of the position you are applying for and highlight your skills that match those listed in the job advert. You want them to read your resume and feel they are meeting (on paper) the candidate they created the job for. Always make sure that the content of your resume is correctly represented. The recruiter or hiring manager will check everything you have included so you need to be comfortable to stand behind any and all information provided.

One of the things to do is to learn how transferable skills work. So assuming you are applying for the position of an HR intern as a recent graduate. Let's say you belonged to a debate society in your university days and you were tasked with the responsibility to show the new members around and orient them on how the society works. That activity could be written as Conducted onboarding exercise for XYZ number of persons from July to August which boosted membership retention by 85%. In your resume.

Make sure that your contents are tailored to the JD. Highlight key achievements for wow factor, and core competencies. Your resume has to carry the persona that matches the role and requirements, hence how you brand yourself through the resume is key.

Talent teams not only want to see what you did, but also the results that it led to! To that end it is critical to QUANTIFY the results of your work experience. For example, “Identified cost savings initiatives for the Engineering business unit” —> should be “Identified $5M in cost saving initiatives, representing 8% of the budget, for the Engineering business unit.”

One of the most common problems I see with resumes is the resume content is too generic. Avoid generic statements. You need to find ways to stand apart from the competition - qualify and quantify your content using specific examples that showcase your strengths, capabilities and key soft skills. Use the thesaurus to find the most impactful language and continually ask yourself: 1) Is what I am writing clear to a third party reader? If not, be more specific. 2) Can I say this in a stronger/more impactful way to help myself stand apart from other similar candidates?

You may not have the cash flow to get your resume written for you, so here are some ways to edit your resume on a budget ?? -Use ChatGPT and AI to your advantage. My favorite prompt to help with resumes is: Hey ChatGPT! Can you please help me personalize my resume for [this job] at [this company]. Here is the job description for you [paste it here]. And here is my current resume [paste it here]. -Get help from your network. Ask 3 people in your network to eyeball your resume for thoughts, suggestions, and edits. People want to help! -Use your college or alumni network to your advantage too. Even career services can help you go from a generic resume to one that truly will stand out.

All the points are important and this one stands out. You can write all you want but if there are numerous typos in your resume, it will communicate a wrong impression of not just you but your communication skills. So, proofreading and editing your resume as many times as possible to get all your sentences and spellings right is the icing on your cake of job search. I wish you good success in your search!

- Spell check your CV - Edit your design layout, and make sure the formatting is impeccable (typography, size letter, spacing). I can't emphasize enough this point, as I've seen hundreds of CVs, and people tend to miss minor details. - Share with one or two trusted friends for feedback

This is such an important part of the process. A fresh set of eyes is necessary. A resume is your first written document for employers and any error can be seen as not caring about your work. One area I often see is in use of tenses consistently (always past tense, except for anything current you are doing).

Must do's - Utilise spell checker - Once you have a 1st draft, read again a few hours later - Update as you go - Have someone else read it - If you ever receive a rejection, ask for specific feedback

Grads can’t use a standard resume format due to the lack of experience. If you’re a grad and want to massively tilt the scales in your favour, you need examples of your work that you can use for the pitch section of your CV. Highlight these and push impacts (no matter how small they may be). Your hook needs to be amazing in order to funnel hiring teams down your resume (summary section). And for everyone’s sake, please make sure it’s 1 page!

Employers want to see that you’ve achieved something even if you’ve not yet had work experience. This can be demonstrated in a number of ways. Highlighting “wins” is a great way to show success. Where have you excelled previously? For example aid you’re a you a member of a team, sports or otherwise that have had some victories highlight the part you played in those. Employers also take stability very seriously and again that hard to demonstrate with no work experience. A way to overcome this is by demonstrating you are a committed person, maybe you had a tough time in uni but you stuck with it and you was resilient. Employers will like this. There’s plenty of creative ways you can demonstrate the qualities that an employer wants.

Never spam your resume to employers. They won't read it and the spray and pray approach never works. Network like crazy. 80% of jobs are never even listed and the vast majority come through people's networks and referrals. Your network is your most valuable asset Create, if you can, great content to showcase what you know and educate potential employers. There is nothing you can't learn if you invest the time to read or study it. Study the companies where you really want to work and when you apply share a cover letter that explains 1. How you will add value in your job and beyond it 2. How your experience, values and purpose are aligned with those of the culture - for more and more companies culture fit is becoming more important

Most recruiters and hiring managers only spend about 30 seconds reviewing a resume so make sure it is clear and to the point. For a new grad, it should never be longer than a page and focus on key skill sets, leadership, and accomplishments. Tailor the objective to each role and company you apply for, highlighting experiences you have that align with the job description you applied to. You’ve got this!

Your CV is your ‘global shop window’ ; buyers have a choice ! As a accredited Executive career coach, it’s important that you target your CV to specific roles so that you can pass the Applicant Tracking System ( ATS) - don’t spray and pray. Recommend an ‘Executive Summary’ to start as follows; - Para 1 : SPECIFIC details about you eg key Skills , academic , languages, relevant experience at senior school, Uni, Groups , societies etc. Avoid cliches. - Para 2; bullet points of the top 3 to 5 achievements or deliverables to-date as a young graduate / young person we have achievements! - Para 3 ; sentence of the role , sector you wish to target. Must get the Executive Summary right - so reader reads rest of the CV. Good luck.