The New Year is just around the corner, and we’re all familiar with the New Year New You theme. But have you applied that ideology to your resume? Here are five simple steps to refresh your resume for the New Year.

  1. Clarify your job target. Once your career direction is clear to you, tailor your skills to that target. This will increase your selling opportunity to potential employers. If you have more than one career interest, it’s best to develop different versions of your resume.
  2. Create a clear, descriptive “Summary” rather than Objective to open your resume. Focus on hard-hitting sentences emphasizing your professional skills and experience. Hiring managers use this area to get a glimpse of an applicant before reading your entire resume.
  3. Make your resume clean yet distinctive. Use a clean, easy to read font type that can be read by a person or machine. To stand out from the crowd, make small formatting changes such as bold, italics, line draw, industry icons, etc.
  4. Utilize your LinkedIn. Put your LinkedIn URL in the header of your resume along with your contact information. Make sure to also review and update your LinkedIn profile!
  5. Proofread, proofread, proofread! Ensure your resume has no misspellings, proper grammar, punctuation, etc.

Writing a resume is especially dreadful. There are so many little things you need to add, rephrase, check, double-check, and triple-check.

Merito Group is a talent acquisition firm in the D.C. area dedicated to assisting candidates to advance their career paths. Our recruiters even offer interview preparation and resume editing services to candidates.

At Merito Group, we work with exceptional candidates who understand how to exceed expectations every time. Contact us here to learn more about our placement services.