How to write a good resume

In this episode, Tammie talks about what makes a good resume to make you stand out in the Australian job market. 

Realistic Careers with Tammie Ballis
Helping you get jobs in the Australian Job Market.

Transcript

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Thank you for listening to the Realistic Careers podcast with Tammy Ballas. Everything that is mentioned in this podcast is my opinion and not advice. Please conduct your own research. Today we're talking about a subject that I'm an expert in, and that's what makes a good resume. And before we get into it, it would make me very happy if you could subscribe to this podcast so I can continue to provide career help to people in the Australian job market. So, what makes a good resume? That's the million-dollar question. As a recruiter and now career consultant and resume writer, my goodness have I seen some shockers, but I've also seen some good ones. What you need to understand is that firstly, you are more than your resume, but your resume is your foot through the door to get an interview, and even when the job requires a video application, you still need a resume. So let's start with what makes a bad resume. Colourful resumes in my world are the devil. Even though they are pretty, even though you think they stand out, they stand out for the wrong reasons. Firstly, they are incredibly hard to read. I want you to think about how you read an email, so your eyes are just reading text on the screen going down, and it's over fairly quickly. Reading a colourful resume is nothing like that. They have columns, they have information everywhere, it's not uniform. The only time when you would use a colourful resume or what we also call a creative resume is when you're in the media or marketing industry. And even then, if you're in the marketing industry, you need two, a colourful resume for marketing agencies because the agency owner will be looking for your creativity, your graphic design skills, and colour theory. For your corporate marketing jobs, you'll need a word format resume. So unless you're in those two industries, don't touch the colourful resumes if you know what's good for you. Resumes with columns. There are heaps of free templates online that have resumes with columns. And like with the creative resumes, they are hard to read. Long resumes. Unless you're applying to a literature job, there is no reason why you need a resume that is more than two to three pages long for a normal everyday job. There are many reasons for this, but mainly, busy recruiters and hiring managers do not have time to read long resumes. Experience that is usually more than 10 years old can aid you and can lead to discrimination. And it also usually means that you've got useless information on there that isn't important. Which leads me to my next grievance, soft skills. Are soft skills important? Of course they are. They're important in a job interview, not on a resume. I understand that there are many articles out there where CEOs say that soft skills are important. However, remember, it is your job to get an interview, and your hard skills is what's going to get you an interview, not your soft skills. I want you to imagine this. You've got a resume in front of you for an administration assistant, and in the soft skills section they've put team leadership. Because this is what happens out there in recruitment land. When has an administration assistant ever done team leadership when there's no evidence of it on the resume whatsoever? It looks ridiculous. Profile statements and career summaries. No one ever got a job based on both of those. Your experience is what gets you over the line. I'll never reject a resume with a profile statement. However, people think that a profile statement is going to help them get a job. And it's not. Same with the career summary. Get with the times. It's not the 90s. Stop repeating yourself. You're not writing an executive summary to a uni assignment. It's just a resume. Hobbies. Bad resumes have hobbies on them. You're not a teenager. Take it off. I recently got in trouble on TikTok for saying this, but I'm the professional here and I'm speaking the truth to help you get a job. Hobbies will open up the door to discrimination. Take them off. Speaking of discrimination, take all things off like religion, profile picture, height, weight, home address, anything personal. And then just general stuff that we see every day, like poor formatting, using different fonts, messy margins, spelling mistakes. That all contribute to a bad resume and will stop you getting an interview.