From the course: Writing a Resume

Use your experience as a roadmap

From the course: Writing a Resume

Use your experience as a roadmap

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- Using your resume to position yourself for the job you want takes quite a lot of time and effort. And your professional experience is the most important section of your resume. In this video, we are going to continue using the job description, labeled manager, human resources, which can be found in your exercise files. So go ahead and open that up now. While the other sections of your resume are important, they cannot stand alone, but your professional experience can. It contains all of the information that a potential employer wants to know, or at least it will once you done with this video. By this point in the process, you have searched the job description for key phrases and important requirements. You've determined what the hiring manager's paying point is and what type of person they need to fill this particular position. And you have added keywords to your resume, as applicable. So now let's look at some of the subtle things you can do beyond adding keywords and phrases found in the job description. If you really want to position yourself for the job you want, you need to give them what they're looking for, and then add what they didn't ask for. You do this by reviewing job descriptions for their competitors. If you're applying to work at HP, look at Dell, Microsoft and Apple. Review job descriptions for similar positions to see if they word things differently. Maybe they included additional responsibilities that you have experience with that were not included in the job description for the job you're applying to. Make sure the added information is relevant and doing this will make your resume stand out above those who simply parroted a few of the keywords directly from the job description. Place the most important and relevant information within the first two bullet points of your experience to capture the reader's attention. If you trained employees in a manufacturing environment in Spanish, that would be something to place in one of your first bullet points, because it captures three requirements all at once. Don't bury it in bullet number six because the person reviewing your resume may never get that far. Got the hang of this yet? Remember to use keywords and relevant experience to make your resume the answer to the question, the interviewer didn't even realize they asked. Solve their problem and your resume will rise to the top of the call for interview pile.

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