Three Ways To Add Personality To Your Resume (And Three Ways Not To)

It takes a hiring manager just a few seconds to look at your resume and decide whether or not they like you enough to want to meet you. That’s precious little time to stand out and convey not just your professional skills but who you are.

Nailing that challenge means striking a careful balance: You want to show you’ve got what it takes to actually do the job but also that you have the soft skills–and personality–to make you someone the hiring manager and the rest of the team will enjoy working with. Here are a few dos and don’ts.

DO: TALK ABOUT YOUR (PROFESSIONAL) PASSIONS

You already know you need to load up your resume with keywords to describe your experience, education, and technical skills–to show you’re a match for the ins and outs of the role’s daily duties. But there’s much less advice out there on how to share your passions with hiring managers: Which ones reflect positively on you as a person? Which seem irrelevant? What comes off as unprofessional?

While experience, skills, and education will help you complete your assigned tasks, this trio isn’t enough to keep you motivated day in and day out. And even if only in the back of their mind, the hiring manager knows that.

So it’s up to you to offer a glimpse of the deeper factors driving your career: What are your professional passions: What motivates and inspires you to go into work each day? Is it the thrill of the unknown that accompanies startup life? A love for seeing children learn and grow? Giving back to your community?

Weave this into the bullets underneath each role on your resume, connecting a few of your key accomplishments with a sense of why those wins matter to you in the first place.

Read the rest of the article on FastCompany!

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