How to Hack Your Resume
Specifically, how to hack your resume to help get a high-paying job!
I brushed over this in Part 2 of the High-Pay series, and today I’ll go over that in depth. Optimizing your LinkedIn profile goes hand-in-hand with making your resume as attractive as possible. If both your resume and profile are polished enough, recruiters will come to you instead of the other way around.
The resume layout I’d recommend should include a summary at the top below your contact information, followed by your experience and education. This is the format my own resume follows, which you can see a version of here or in the image below:
General Resume Notes
There are two things I’d like to highlight when you’re ready to hack your resume. First: I made sure to include the software tools and platforms I’m most familiar with. No, this doesn’t merit its own “Skills” section. Weave them into your narrative of what you do for a living. Second: I included something that potential recruiters and hiring managers might connect with me on. In my case, it was a study abroad experience. If you studied abroad, put it on. If you were involved in Greek life, put it on. Basically, if you think anything you were a part of might echo Elle Wood’s experience, go for it.
You might also notice I’m a fan of the Liz Ryan approach to resumes, in that everything sounds like a human wrote it instead of a robot. It helps to get recruiters to slow down when reviewing your hacked resume, which is what you want. The more time you can get them to review you, the more they’re going to think about where they can place you.
Because you’re a smart cookie, you’re also going to ensure there are no formatting or grammatical issues (let alone spelling errors). You can see all bullet points and headings are neatly aligned on the example resume. You can also see I wrote my current experience bullet points in present tense, while I wrote all past roles in past tense. That kind of thing matters quite a bit, especially if you want to show you pay attention to the details.
As for the one- versus two-page resume debate: I’d go with one page, just to play it safe. If you’re not in a high-pay role already there’s no point in risking losing out on a potential role because of something like length.
But that’s the general stuff for me. To hack your resume your situation might look a little different. Here’s a few examples that might be more applicable to you:
Entry-Level Ellen
Ellen is graduating college and wants to get an entry-level position paying at least $50,000 a year as an entry-level business analyst. She has a couple of good experiences under her belt and has dutifully listed them on her resume. However, as neither role is longer than a year Ellen knows she’ll have to be more competitive with the skills she brings to the table in lieu of experience.
Ellen’s summary and experiences section might look like this:
If you’re like Ellen and you’re wondering how to describe your internship experience(s), I’d look up current job listings for the internship you had done. Several companies write out job listings if you can’t find the one specific to your role or company. Alternatively, if you’ve got your eye on a particular position or company, you might want to hack your resume so that it reflects all the terminology used in the job posting.
Farther-Along Fran
Fran is a fine lady specializing in office management. She’s worked for the same company for 8 years now and would like to be paid more. However, since it’s been a long time since she’s looked for jobs she’s not sure if she should attempt it at all. But she knows that she’s statistically more likely to get a raise by going elsewhere, so she’s willing to try this out.
After putting in some research on what high-paying jobs she might be suited for, Fran realizes there’s a lot of job titles out there she’s qualified for: administration and executive assistance roles are right up her alley. She chooses to shoot for an executive assistant position and is ready to fix her resume for that.
Here’s what her resume experience might look like:
Because her jobs span more years than Ellen’s, I see nothing wrong with adding additional bullet points to explain her duties. A good rule-of-thumb is putting no more than six bullet points for any one role, but use your best judgment if you think adding more is beneficial.
What About Yours?
If you you’re ready to revamp your resume and LinkedIn profile, let’s talk! Send all of the following to darcywantsguac[at]gmail.com so we can get cracking:
- Age
- Current job title
- Current job responsibilities
- Salary
- Location
- Dream job
- Your plan to get to your dream job from your current job (timeline, probable career path, etc)
- A copy of your current resume
- LinkedIn profile link
- Current situation (why you want to do that in particular, how suited your location is for your current and dream jobs, if you have dependants/significant others, etc)
- Specific questions
How long has it been since you’ve reworked your resume? Anything I should add or consider to this advice?
*Of course, I’ll scrub any and all identifying information from your resume, which may include changing the dates of your work history for We Want Guac readers.