Write an Incredible Resume with These 5 Tips Backed by Research

Do you dream of a job that is fulfilling and will lead to a better future? You can get there by creating an incredible resume that showcases your strengths and abilities. In this post, we will provide five essential tips for crafting a resume that is sure to impress potential employers. Whether you’re an experienced professional, or someone looking to make the leap into the professional world, these tips will help you write a resume that stands out from the competition.

Here are the key takeaways from resume researchers that will show you how to use data to make your resume stand out from the crowd.

Tip #1: Resumes with a LinkedIn profile see higher interview rates, but only 48% of resumes included a LinkedIn profile.

Tip #2: Candidates only included 51% of important keywords and skills, heavily under-indexing on soft skills.

Tip #3: Measurable metrics improve resume outcomes, but only 26% of resumes include five or more metrics.

Tip #4: Research shows that the ideal resume length is 475 to 600 words. 77% of resumes fell outside of that range.

Tip #5: Fluffy content takes away from a resume’s value, but 51% of resumes included buzzwords or cliches.

Now let’s dig into these top 5 tips:

Include a LinkedIn profile on your resume

A study showed that job seekers who included a LinkedIn profile on their resume were more likely to receive interview requests.

That being said, if you’re not willing to put any effort into your LinkedIn profile, it’s better to hide it altogether. A lack of detail or Empty fields on your profile will actually decrease the likelihood of potential employers taking an interest in you.

The differences between a comprehensive profile and a basic one boil it down to:

Having a professional headshot and LinkedIn banner

How informative your work detail section is

How much effort you put into building meaningful connections

The higher the job level, the smaller the callback rate gap becomes between job applicants. This implies that having a good LinkedIn profile is more crucial for entry-level job seekers than it is for their higher-level counterparts.

Include the right keywords and skills when writing a resume

When you apply for a job online, AI-powered applicant tracking systems scan for certain keywords and experiences to match relevant resumes, and filter out low-potential candidates that don’t match those keywords. The average job description includes around 43 keywords, but most resumes only have 51% of those relevant keywords. This means that on their resumes, candidates only included approximately 20 or so relevant keywords.

Free online word cloud tools are a great way to overcome this. Copy and paste the job description into one of these tools and identify the keywords that pop up most frequently. Make sure to include those same keywords in your resume.

Resumes studied contained 60% of the required hard skills for a job, but only 28% of the essential soft skills when compared to their target role’s job description. This is likely because there is often a Skills/Interests section at the bottom of your resume or LinkedIn where you show off your capabilities with hard skills like Excel and coding languages.

Places like Udemy’s workplace trends report and CNBC’s summary of the top 10 in-demand soft skills can help you determine which ones are relevant to your field so that you can include them accordingly.

Include measurable results in your bullet points.

A recent study found that, of resumes surveyed, only 26% included five or more instances of measurable metrics. This means that 36%, more than a third, didn’t include a single quantifiable result.

Because metrics make value easier to understand and quantify, companies prefer resumes with numbers. For example, if ten candidates all say they planned and executed social media campaigns, it is difficult to determine who did an exemplary job versus those who didn’t without hard data.

The person that says, “My campaigns drove 30% year-on-year increase in revenue,” is going stand out from the stack of resumes.

You can use a popular X-Y-Z resume bullet point formula to perfect this technique:

“I accomplished X, as measured by Y, by doing Z.”

For example, if you’re a content marketing manager, your bullet point might look like this:

Drove 2,500 organic signups to our monthly newsletter by A/B testing content layout and collaborating with co-marketing partners, representing a 43% quarter-on-quarter increase.

Although not every task will have a direct hand in business growth, there is still a way you can use this formula when writing your resume.

If you’re working on party planning, you can say your quicker set-up time led to more bookings. Maybe that’s a 33% increase in productivity for the sales team, which translates to X amount of incremental revenue.

Keep your resume length between 475 and 600 words.

If your resume is between 500-600 words, you’re automatically in a stronger position compared to other candidates, as research has shown that this “sweet spot” receives double the interviews. In fact, 77% of resumes analyzed in a recent study were below 475 words or above 600.

In other words, resist the urge to stuff your resume with random keywords in an attempt to increase its chances of matching a job posting. Quality trumps quantity here. You can use Google Docs as a helpful tool to make sure your resume is on track.

Do not include fluffy, cliche, or buzzword keywords.

We’re all motivated by the things we love, right? And who doesn’t like working with a great team to achieve common goals? We’ve all got creative mindsets, too. So it makes sense that we would discuss how different products can work together unanimously.

If you found that hard to listen to, imagine the recruiter going over 30 resumes a day.

According to a recent study, 51% of resumes in the data set included some sort of buzzword or cliche. Buzzwords, fluff, cliches are unnecessary and take away from your message.

To make your resume more impactful, focus on writing about your experience in a way that sells it instead of simply summarizing it. As a practical solution, try Googling common resume cliches and buzzwords to help you identify language to remove from your own document.

Crafting a strong resume is essential to finding a job in today’s competitive market. In order to make your resume stand out, you should focus on writing about your experience in a way that sells it instead of simply summarizing it. Additionally, you should include research-backed bullet points with measurable results, optimize and add your LinkedIn profile, and avoid industry buzzwords.

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