3 resume format tips and tricks every job seeker should know

3 resume format tips and tricks every job binnenseeker should know3 resume format tips and tricks every job seeker should knowThe following post is by ESI fromESI Money, a blog about achieving financial independence through earning, saving, and investing (ESI). Its written by an early 50s retiree who achieved financial independence, shares whats worked for him, and details how others can implement those successes in their lives. He is also the author of a free ebook titledThree Steps to Financial Independenceand spends a lot of his timeinterviewing millionaires.Several months ago, a friend recommended I give reddit a try. He said there were lots going on at the site and I would enjoy it.Enjoy was bedrngnis the first word I thought of when he mentioned it. I think I was mora in the fear camp initially.Follow Ladders on FlipboardFollow Ladders magazines on Flipboard covering Happiness, Productivity, Job Satisfaction, Neuroscience, and moraBut I eventually overcame my concerns, joined r eddit, and spent a couple of months trying to get into the flow of how things worked and finding subreddits I was interested in.Once I felt more settled, I wanted to give back to the community, so I started looking at places to contribute.Naturally, I gravitated toward the rolleal finance topics. After all, I have had a decent amount ofmoney successmyself (financially independent at 42,retired at 52, and had written on the subject for 15+years.)But it didnt take long to find out that everyone on reddit is a money management expert. (I hope you can hear the sarcasm in that.)Anyway, I had little interest in explaining money problems to a 32-year-old expert with almost no net worth to his personenname. I had seen others try and the pack descend on him, so no thank you.I kept searching and eventually, I found a subreddit wherepeople posted their resumes and asked for help reviewing them. As someone who had reviewed thousands of resumes during my working career, interviewed and hired hun dreds of people, and managed my own career with success, I knew I could help.So I dived inThe average questionerAfter reading several posts, I could see a pattern - a very strong pattern.The posts were eerily similar to each other. I know that rarely happens but again and again, the same post popped up.Heres a representative sample of what the vast majority were likeHey, guysI have been looking for a job for a year now and am having no luck at all.I have applied for about 900 positions and havent received one call back, so Im aya the problem is with my resume.Can you look it over and offer suggestions on how I can improve it?The resume was attached for us all to comment on.Resume format messTo say the resumes were a mess is an understatement.Im leid sure where these people got their initial advice on how to create a resume outline, but I assume it was either a first-grade elementary class or a trained monkey.Anyway, it was apparent why the resume wasnt getting any results.Even more , I saw a second pattern developing. Again and again, each poster had the same exact issues. They were making critical mistakes - ones that made their resumes almost worthless.I was seeing this so often that it got to the point where I was making the same exact recommendations to poster after poster. Eventually, I made responding easier on myself by writing out a detailed response, saving it as a document on my computer, and literally copying and pasting it to one question after another. They all needed the same adviceSo in the interest of saving future posters the trouble of asking for help, I thought Id share the three common issues reddit posters faced and my recommendations on how to address them.Ill list them as recommendations on what to do instead of what to avoid as I think its more positive.So with that said, here are my three tips for making your resume as strong as possible1. Follow a standard format full of easy-to-read bullet points.Consider this findingdetailed on Tim eAccording to a study released this week by TheLadders, an erreichbar job-matching service, recruiters spend an average of six seconds reviewing an individual resume. The standard thought was that recruiters spent at least several minutes on each CV. Nope.Six seconds YikesThe reality is that recruiters have a TON of resumes to sort through so they need to weed them out quickly. Thats why each one gets six seconds.This means that a resume writer needs to capture their attention and stand out (in a good way) in six seconds. If this happens, perhaps the review can be extended to 10 or 15 seconds, which allows the candidate enough time to tell his story a bit and hopefully make the maybe pile instead of being consigned to the trash bin.What exactly do I mean here? I suggest the followingDo not get creative.You need to follow the standard format of 1) contact info at the top, 2) work experience in reverse chronological order next, and 3) education at the end. Recruiters are used to this format and using it ensures they spend their time looking at your background and not figuring out where the info is. If you get creative and develop a non-standard format resume, they spend their six seconds trying to figure out what the heck is going on and you lose your chance to impress them.Use bullet points to detail your experience.As you discuss your work experience, highlight your accomplishments (more on this below) in bullet points. These are easy to read quickly and can convey a ton of information in a short period of time. In six seconds, several bullet points can easily communicate this is someone I need to talk to.Forget the list of skills at the top.I dont need you to tell me youre creative, determined, and results-oriented. Ill make that determination for myself. Tell me what youve done and from there Ill form my own conclusions.There are exceptions to these of course. If youre applying for a creative position, then throw out the rules and be creative with your resum e (as long as you still communicate well, of course). If you have some skill thats required for the job (or gives you a leg up), then you may want to include it at the top. But for 95%+ of the jobs out there, these tips hold true.The resumes I was seeing on reddit were all sorts of messy. People were detailing their job experience in paragraphs so difficult to read Im sure no one plowed through them. They listed their experience at the end of the resume and in no particular order. They were spending the first half of the page telling us what they thought of themselves (and their abilities) versus getting to the meat of the presentation. These resumes were train wrecks and it was easy to see why they had not been effective.2. List quantifiable accomplishments beginning with action verbs.Consider two candidates. The first one lists the following in detailing his most recent jobI helped the sales team in their work.The second lists thisSupported nine-person team to deliver 10.4% sales growth over the previous year and earn company-wide recognition award for performance.Now, which of those two people would you want to interview? (By the way, the purpose of a resume is simply to get you an interview.)See how the second is so much better than the first? If you dont let me name a few waysThe second seems like its written impartially (though its not, of course.) By not using I it makes the accomplishment less from you and more objective.Theres action in the second one. The candidate supported the team. What did the first person do? Probably whatever they told him. The second person took action (and appears to be more of a go-getter). By the way, supported isnt the greatest action word in the world. Id prefer led or directed but most entry-level people arent at the stage where they direct or lead much, so you have to use the best word you can.The second has QUANTIFIABLE results. They are not vague - you know he was part of a team that had a 10.4% sales increase. Thats both specific and impressive.The second sneaks in a second point detailing why hes awesome. Not only did he work to deliver great sales, but an outside source (the company) recognized the efforts as outstanding. This guy is a winnerThe sad thing is that these two different lines could actually be the same person Its just that if he has no clue how to write a resume it might be more like option 1 but if he had a bit of direction hed write it as option 2.Questions I get about this tip often come down to I dont have any accomplishments and Im not sure how to quantify what Ive done.If you literally have zero accomplishments, you need to try and make the bullets sound as impressive as you can. That said, if you have honestly contributed nothing meaningful to your current employer, why should a new one want to hire you?If you have accomplishments but arent sure they can be quantified, thats better than nothing. But think hard and use numbers if at all possible as long as they are impress ive (delivering a sales increase of 0.1% is not worth mentioning - unless of course the rest of the company was down 20% and then youd want to list it as Delivered 20% sales increase versus the rest of company.)3. Focus on networking if you really want to find a job.Submitting a resume online makes the applicant feel like hes doing something, but the chances of being hired this way are remote. In fact,Forbes says, This method works just 4% of the time, on average.I have advertised jobs online several times and wed always get a few hundred applicants for one position. I probably spent less than six seconds on each resume just to get it down to 10 or so I felt were qualified. Im sure I missed many great candidates this way but the sheer numbers dictated my actions. Many companies face the same thing, thats why the odds of being hired from an online source are not great.Instead, do a little networking. You know, actually talk to human beings - people you know, people friends and fami ly know, people past co-workers know, people your college professors know, and on and on. Talk to people, tell them what youre looking for, and ask if they can help or know anyone who can.By the way, youre going to need to be a good networker to advance your career anyway (networking is one on myseven steps to make millions more in your career), so you might as well get good at it now.Networking takes a lot more effort (which is why people probably avoid it) but is MUCH more successful. Forbes says this method works 33% of the time. The only thing that works better (at 47%) is knocking on the door of any employer which is simply a cold-call version of networking.If youre looking for another source on the dynamics above, consider thefacts presented here80 percent of jobs are not posted online.Only about five applicants actually earn an interview from hundreds of applications.Referrals account for around a third of all external hires.Networking allows you to break out of the pack, fin d a personal connection, and get selected as one of the few who get an interview. Using it you have between a 33% and 47% chance of success - versus a 4% chance simply posting online. Is it any wonder these reddit posters were having issues?Its not just reddit usersMy experience here was with reddit users, but its not unique to them.Almost everywhere I get asked about reviewing a resume (from a friend in person, someone emailing me one, online on other sites, etc.) I see the exact same missteps. These there are very common. And unfortunately, if you get them wrong, you are significantly hurting your chances for success.That said, now that you know how critical these are, implement them in your next resume. If you do, youll stand out from the pack and your odds of success will grow dramatically.This article originally appeared on Your Money Geek.You might also enjoyNew neuroscience reveals 4 rituals that will make you happyStrangers know your social class in the first seven words yo u say, study finds10 lessons from Benjamin Franklins daily schedule that will double your productivityThe worst mistakes you can make in an interview, according to 12 CEOs10 habits of mentally strong people