K2 Staffing has over 40 years of combined recruiting and staffing experience, implying we’ve reviewed 1,000’s of resumes, and therefore have a fairly good idea of what hiring managers are looking for. It’s more often than not that a candidate’s resume requires some significant attention prior to us putting it in front of our client for consideration. If you are in the job market, we highly recommend that you look over the following suggestions to improve how you’ll be perceived by a potential employer.

10 Areas to Improve Your Resume:

1. Contact Information – Confirm your contact information is correct. Countless resumes are submitted to us with incorrect phone numbers, misspelled email addresses, or out-of-date locations. We are unable to take you seriously as a candidate when you haven’t ensured that something as simple as your contact information is accurate.

2. Typeface – Choose ONE typeface, such as Times New Roman, Arial, or Cambria and stick with it. Make sure it’s clean and satisfies the professionalism you desire. You may bold your name, or headings, such as “Professional Experience” or “Education”, but do not overbold as it becomes distracting.

3. Font Size – Outside of your name at the top, keep the font size uniform throughout the resume, such as 9pt, 10pt, or 11pt.

4. Number of pages – Too many pages will put you at the bottom of the pile. List only relevant and important facts, so you don’t scare your potential employer away by intimidating them with the information on your resume. Keep it to 2 pages or less.

5. Margins – Feel free to decrease your margins to .75 or even .5 to provide clean, uniform borders, while reducing your page count.

6. Bullet Points – Choose a style and remain uniform, while justifying them a certain way, such as left-justified. Make sure they are aligned, as misaligned bullet points look sloppy. Also, do NOT write paragraphs for each job. Keep it simple and easy to read. Use bullet points to highlight areas of positions you’ve held.

7. Content in Positions Held – Do not copy/paste duties and responsibilities from one job to another. Instead, stand out by focusing on how you improved a company, such as by reducing costs, improving revenue, people you trained, customers you serviced, etc. Use words such as implemented, administered, grew, managed, resolved, developed, established, to name a few.

8. Dates – Choose a date format and keep it uniform, such as 01/01/2023 or January 01, 2023. Additionally, choose where to put your dates, either underneath the job or justified to the right, while
maintaining that format throughout.

9. Graphics – Do not add graphics, such as logos for software used, or companies you’ve held positions at. It looks tacky and unprofessional. Instead, use graphics on your social media presence, such as LinkedIn or a personal website.

10. Voicemail – Ensure your mobile voicemail is set up with your voice, not a default, and it’s able to receive a message. It better not say “I’m sorry, but the number you’ve reached has a voicemail that has not been set up yet. Goodbye!” or your voicemail box is full. This is incredibly frustrating to an employer and will lead to them disqualifying you.

If you’re actively seeking a new position and require help with your resume, reach out to us, as we can lend a helping hand in building out a solid and respectable resume for a nominal fee that will assist you in landing the job of your choice.