Good Resume Characteristics: What to Put on Yours?

What are the trusty characteristics and traits to familiarize yourself with before building a beautiful resume? What things does a great résumé show employers?

If you talk to as many recruiters and hiring managers as we do at Enhancv and pose the questions: “What are the strong appearances of a good resume that gets applicants hired?” and “What are the resume traits one should avoid?” patterns emerge. It turns out that Zipf is right once more, and the majority of people fail to respond.

As experienced career experts, we come across a ton of applications on a weekly basis, and it turns out that, like all things in life, one needs to build up or at least gain, some fundamental idea of what’s a resume that doesn’t kill your chances of getting the job. Basic résumé characteristics come to: being honest with full disclosure, up-to-date, and to-the-point. But where do we go from there?

Strategic structure

This is a problem we want to solve! That’s why we put up the following checklist of strong characteristics, qualities, and traits the average applicant should know when preparing a resume/CV.

Laser-targeted resume

Irrelevant applications make recruiters cringe. Your resume needs to correspond directly to what the job needs to be done. Do your best and address job aspects in the best order of priority.

Tactical organization

A neat and minimalistic resume is one that reads well, yet some industries require the chronological format, functional format, or specific combos.

Having too much clutter or unnecessary color raises the bar and cognitive load skyrockets. When your reader struggles to consume information, you risk recruiters skimming the surface.

Professional looks

Appearances can deceive yet make all the difference.

Sadly, most applicants send botchy resumes from unprofessional emails that totally kills their first impression. Especially if the open position is popular, then looks can surely play a role that either kills your chances or favors them.

The one to take advantage and craft a neat, clean, and attractive resume of superior feel and looks has a higher chance of winning the race.

• Leave enough space in between sections.
• Make each component single-spaced.

Such effort inclines recruiters to foresee motivation as a leading KPI as they measure your employee engagement. If you want to get there, ask yourself the following questions:

• Could you say that your resume has the professional look it deserves?
• Are margins balanced both on the side, top, and bottom? We recommend setting these to half of an inch, but no greater than one inch.
• Does it look stuffy? If so, apply formatting to dilute the cognitive load.
• Do you use basic formatting such as bold, italic, headings, bullets, and standalone paragraphs based on meaning and balanced informational structure? You betted do!

Well-written and concise

Looks make a resume inviting to read but words fill your ears with honey.

Your resume must have correct grammar, spelling, punctuation, and a concise flow. Use short paragraphs, that clearly distinguish yourself from other applications after the same position.

Everyone knows that resumes are scanned quickly, so it’s important to strategically place information in a way that grabs attention and encourages you to read further.

Recruiters don’t like to read novels.

Personal brand-y touch

Your resume must outline and highlight your personal brand.

• Reflect on what you want recruiters to recognize and appreciate about your identity when reading your resume.
• Think about the aspects and characters of your personal and professional profile you believe are unique, and highlight them throughout your resume.
• Make sure that your brand is clear throughout your resume: in person, on your resume, and on social media.
• Aim to have people associate you with the personal brand that you designed yourself.

Practical experience

You should include relevant educational and work experience on your resume that shows that you are passionate about your chosen field of study and that demonstrates how you can contribute to any organization.

Include internship, apprenticeship, personal and freelance experience, related projects, and organizations you are active in that are relevant to the position you are applying for.

This shows your reader your interest in the particular job you are applying for and will help demonstrate that you have the necessary skills and experience to do it great.

It also shows that you have relevant experience that is valuable to the organization at hand.

Result and impact driven

Don't build a task-oriented resume.

Instead, tailor it on top of results by using words like “responsible for” or “assisted” instead of stating that you play key roles in producing results. Beware of exaggeration and false information, though.

Reference actual numbers, accomplishments, and execution behind those results. Testify to your reader that you are a high impact and performance achiever, nowhere near the bare minimum.

You can show your accomplishments and achievements by bolding them, so your emphasis is clearly communicated. These will help a potential employer know how you’ve made an impact in the past and what you can do for the company

Conversational skills

Stiff and clumsy speech turns recruiters down. Unfortunately, that might have zero relation to your industry, but it is what it is. C’est la vie.

If conveying your thoughts in letters and words is nowhere near your strong qualities, ask for help. The market for resume writing services has all the help you need.

Interest-driven contents

Business needs people of high integrity, stamina, and adaptive intelligence. But what does that mean?

It means that you should keep your failure outside the scope of a job application. Do your best and list only results that deserve their place in history. At the end of the day, business needs results.

• Does the information listed relate to the niche/industry of the job opening? In case of a “no”, then keep things short and precise. Recruiters are interested only in achieving one goal – hiring the right employee.
• Do you use clear statements vs long and hefty sentences?
• Does your resume focus on victories and chores handled?
• Will recruiters get a good idea from titles you added per sections from your background?
• Do you use enough symbols? That’s how you reduce the cognitive load.
• Have you listed all the right keywords and terms?

Mistake-free

More often than not, it’s grammar and style that rushes HRs to… disregard an application because of poor culture and skill. Never submit a job application unless you’ve done a dozen proofreading sessions yourself!

• Forward to family and friends.
• Double-check grammar, spelling, and style.
• Weave punctuation mistakes out.
• Check capitalization and visual balance.

Actionable

As silly as it seems, people often forget to add their contacts. Yes, crucial details such as phone numbers, emails, and social media profiles are miles away from being regularly added on resumes.

Make sure to:

• Leave your name.
• Leave your number.
• Other details - such as a link to your updated LinkedIn profile or online portfolio.

Solid professional experience

The best sign is that of rich and years-long time in the field, but that's a luxury out of control.

Characters of good resumes – the sum up

Do your homework right and praise the fruits of your labor! Taking the time to read through all strong character traits to build a good resume appearance that gets you hired is always worth it.