Resume Writing 101

When the competition is fierce it’s important to do everything you can to separate yourself from other applicants. We’ve provided a few of the bare essentials, but absolutely encourage your due diligence before interviewing. Here are few critical steps to getting you closer to landing the job.

Step 1: Take a good but critical look at your resume…and make sure that other peers and professionals do as well. Don’t find out in an interview that you have misspellings and grammatical issues with your resume. Read, revise, proof, revise, share, revise, proof again…you know the drill.

The below example is a good contemporary resume template for presenting your skills clearly and efficiently!

Step 2: Refine your resume and highlight your achievements. If your resume format is good and you generally feel like you have a sound rough draft, the next step is to refine your achievements and the verbiage you use to describe your experience. Highlight the responsibilities and success that make you different from other job seekers and make sure you are using appropriate industry jargon. A little legwork at this stage can mean the difference between getting the interview or not. Download the below Resume Spotlight for before and after example scenarios from the restaurant and hospitality industries.

Step 3. Make sure that you align your resume with your elevator pitch. If you mention on your resume that you take a proactive approach to customer service or have experience in consultative sales, be prepared to give examples. One effective approach is using the Situation, Task, Action and Result method (or STAR).

Example:

Situation: Interviewer asks for a scenario in which you had to solve “X” problem or asks about a statement on your resume.
Task: What was the point of solving “X”
Action: What was it that you did to solve “X”
Result: What was the result of that action

Use the above method to keep answers focused and brief in your interviews.