Resumes remain the basic starting point for your job search.While there are new ways to get your information to prospective employers — a LinkedIn profile, a personal blog, your Facebook page, networking events, etc. — the resume still is a necessity. Employers use resumes to narrow the list of candidates they call in for an interview. Your resume is often the ticket into the interview. Use it to show why you are the best candidate for the job.​Master the Basics ​Start your resume strong with a clear objective that highlights your main qualifications for the position. For every job you’ve held, list in a concise manner: The company name and time worked at the organization Job title along with primary skills, duties and responsibilities Additional skills and responsibilities you brought to the job Accomplishments using results and numbers when possible Any additional qualifications and technical skills relevant to the job opening ​Pay Attention to Details Employers scan resumes for specific criteria. Include details they want to see, including: Skills for a specific job, including keywords from the job listing Specific levels of work experience Reliability by listing dates of employment at each company Leadership and initiative by listing leadership roles and examples of initiative ​Create a Digital Footprint Set yourself apart by breaking free of the format everyone else is using and taking advantage of online tools. Fortunately, there are digital resume services that can help tune up a resume for a digital format without any special coding or technical skills. Here are some of those tools that will help you dazzle employers with your digital resume. ​Be Focused and Concise Don’t include unnecessary information or personal identifications (like your age or ethnicity) on your resume. Be focused on your qualifications. Keep it brief and to the point.​Commit It to Memory Employers will use your resume as part of the basis for your interview. Review your resume in advance and be prepared to discuss all of the qualifications, skills and work experience listed. ​Before you jump into the next phase of the job search, make sure to master the resume portion. It’s the building blocks of the rest of your career trajectory.

​If you are a recent graduate, now is the time to work on refining certain skills to help your transition to the workplace.​This summer, a new group of ambitious college graduates will hit the job market. Along with their energy and enthusiasm also comes inexperience. Here are the top communication skills that employers want to see from new grads. ​Listen, listen, listenWhen you are just starting out, you should listen more than you talk. Really hear what the other person is saying, instead of formulating your response. Ask for clarification to avoid misunderstandings. The person speaking to you should be the most important person. Don’t multitask. This means that if you are speaking to someone on the phone, do not respond to an email, or send a text at the same time. ​Be clear and concise Maybe every once in a while, on occasion it could be said that a college student filled a 20-page paper will a few filler words to meet a minimum word count. In the business setting, however, time is money. Getting to the point in a presentation or meeting is a premium communication skill. Work on clearly articulating your point in a concise and direct manner.​Project management skills In college, a big project rarely lasted longer than a semester, and usually were much shorter. But in the workplace, you are often expected to juggle multiple projects that can last six months, a year or longer. Set several milestone goals, check in on progress regularly, get feedback, and use the resources of others around you. Practice the art of meetings Meetings in an office are also different than the group meetings or the dorms at college. To respect others’ time, always send out an agenda before the meeting, giving participants enough time to prepare. At the start of the meeting, establish the ground rules for communicating, and any other expectations. Finally, send meeting minutes to those who participated or who will be affected by what was discussed. ​​Organizations know that it will take time for new graduates to get acclimated to their new work environment. That’s also a two-way street. Spend time getting up to speed in your communication practices, and the transition will be smoother for everyone. ​

​Spring cleaning applies to your work life as well as your home life. Now is a great time to dust off your resume and look for ways to update, upgrade and improve your resume content and format. Here are 6 ways to bring your resume new life.  ​Tailor your resume for the digital age  ​Digital tools can help tune up a resume for a digital format without any special coding or technical skills. Set yourself apart by breaking free of the format everyone else is using and taking advantage of online tools. Digital resume services can tune up a resume for a digital format without any special coding or technical skills.  ​Use keywords ​Have you included the words that reflect specifically the skills and requirements they are looking for? Copy and paste any ad you intend to respond to into Wordle.net or Tagcrowd.com. These services identify and highlight the keywords that surface most frequently in the text. You can then simply sprinkle these words/phrases liberally throughout the resume. ​​Edit and delete ​Your resume is both what you put in and what you leave out. Review your resume to delete unfocused career objectives, irrelevant job experiences, unprofessional email address and other additions that aren’t helpful to your end goals.  ​​Create a video-based visual resume  This high-tech resume signals to prospective employers that you are comfortable with new technology. Producing a video doesn’t have to be an expensive endeavor since many digital cameras on the market today can shoot good quality videos.​​Sync your resume with your LinkedIn profile  ​Presenting a consistent professional image by synchronizing your resume and your LinkedIn profile. Many employers will check your social media profiles, which can include a much fuller picture of who you are professionally. By completing your LinkedIn profile to include your job history and samples of your work, you can show potential employers that you understand modern technology. ​Post your resume online  ​Finally, make sure you are discoverable by uploading your resume to your personal website, to your LinkedIn profile, and to other sites such as job search websites where it can be found by potential employers. ​Get more tips on creating a great resume by clicking here.

​Far too often, recruiters have received applications that have made them turn white in fright. Spelling errors, over-the-top “creative” layouts, mini autobiographies, illegible fonts (comic sans, anyone?) – these are just some of the examples that have made recruiters drop everything and run. With Halloween coming up, here’re some tips on how to make your resume a treat to read and help it land in the callback pile. ​1. Keep It ConciseA recruiter often has to go through over a hundred applications for a role and the worst thing that you could do is to send in a resume that has over 20 pages detailing your life’s achievements from the time you were born. Be more discerning on the information that you want to include in your resume and be concise. A good way to do so is to list down any relevant work and education history that you have from the past 5 to 10 years as well as skills that are relevant to the job or industry that you are applying for.​2. Use the Right Formatting​As most companies today are using an application tracking system (also known as ATS) to filter through applications during the initial recruitment stage, your resume is very likely to be screened by a resume bot first. To ensure that your resume is ATS-friendly, here’re some things to note:Use the right file format. Unless the system mentions you can upload PDF documents, the safest option is to use Word document saved as .doc or .docx. Stick to simple bullet pointsUse an ATS-friendly and easy to read font such as Times New Roman, Arial, and Verdana. Avoid using fonts such as Comic Sans and Jokerman. Use simple bullet points to list down your work history. Avoid using tables and columns as the information might not be detectable by the ATS.3. Look for Keywords in Job AdsBesides using the right format, it is important to tailor your resume to the job in order to get past the resume bot. A good way to start is to look at the job advertisement and determine what the skills required are and include the keywords in your resume. Besides listing down the relevant technical skills, highlight any transferable skills you have as well. However, simply including all the keywords in your resume will not work – the system is smarter than you think. Decide on the keywords that are relevant to you and incorporate them within your work experience. ​4. Include Sections in Your ResumeRecruiters usually spend a few seconds to look through each application. To help recruiters easily navigate your resume and draw their attention to key information, include headings and sub-headings such as ‘Work Experience’, ‘Skills’ and ‘Education’.​5. Quantify Your Work AchievementsQuantifying your work achievements is a great way to show, and not tell, the hiring manager why you’re the right candidate for the job. Besides adding legitimacy to your capabilities, doing so can help the person sifting through the applications to have a clearer understanding of the scale and impact of your accomplishments. This can be done even if your job does not directly work with numbers. Use digits to represent the numbers instead of words to make it easier to read. Here’re some examples of how you can quantify your accomplishments:Increased company’s market share by 10% within a year of launching the product in the marketImproved Google Business Reviews rating from 3.8 stars to 4.2 stars after implementing a new customer service program.Taught a class of over 30 students and increased average exam scores by at least 15 points.Wrote 5 blog articles a week which has over 100 shares per article.Use these tips to create a great resume that will be a treat to read not just during Halloween, but for any time of the year. For more resume tips, click here.

​The economy has shifted at a rapid pace, with some sectors losing workers while others can’t add talent fast enough to keep up with demand. For workers who find themselves searching for jobs, making the leap is possible. Here are transferable skills to highlight on your resume and consider when searching and applying for new roles in fast-growing fields like logistics or customer service.Critical thinkingAs organizations make pivots and fast-paced changes in response to the global workforce environment, workers can take concepts learned in their previous roles, and apply them to new opportunities. In their new roles, workers need critical thinking to take their knowledge and apply it to the interconnectedness of the workplace environment. When there isn’t a road map, the ability to think on your feet and also consider long-term implications is essential and in demand. Coordination and collaborationProject management skills will always be in demand, including the need to coordinate and collaborate among multiple people, skill sets, and teams. In any workplace, you’re often expected to juggle multiple projects at once, often over a long-term timetable. Employers will always need people who can set goals, check-in on progress regularly, get feedback, and use the resources of others around you. Time managementEvery workplace has the same amount of this limited resource: Time. People who can manage time and workload effectively will be valuable wherever they go. Managing workload effectively means understanding your own abilities and timeline, and also that of others around you. Those who know how to respect others’ time will always send out an agenda before a meeting, set timelines for projects, and create check-in targets to adjust if necessary. Active listening and communicationMore than half (56%) of employers say communication skills, written and verbal, are their most valued human strengths followed by collaboration and problem-solving, according to a ManpowerGroup global survey. That’s why developing these skills is important for any workplace, and they’ll only become more necessary during change. Finally, above all learnability is needed over the long term to adapt to an ever-changing economy. Learnability is the desire and ability to continually learn and grow throughout careers. Of all transferable skills, learnability is the foundation –– and will help keep you in demand for the future.

Applying for a customer service or receptionist role?  Check out this sample resume for reference.​​​​

Here's a useful outline to guide your resume writing process:​​

Here's a sample of a resume for your reference:​​​

From personal websites to social networking, job seekers have a wide variety of tools and resources to help them land a new job. With all these options, don't forget the importance of a solid resume.Modern job seekers enjoy the benefit of many helpful tools and resources to assist in their search. From social media and online job boards to professional recruiting agencies, there are so many new things to try to expand your network and help you stand out. As you're experimenting with these new resources, it can be easy to forget the important role a resume still plays in your job search. Besides the fact that your resume is required for most employers (and is one of the necessary elements to help get your foot in the door), it is also a helpful tool to help organize your experience and define your personal brand. The best approach is to leverage your resume in parallel to your other job search efforts. Here are a few ways to make your resume work in sync with everything else you are doing to find a job. Include links to your social media profiles on you resume Job searchers use a variety of methods to accomplish this. One way is to include a social media section on your resume. More often than not, this section is at the bottom of the resume. Other job searchers include social media profiles with their contact information at the top of the page.Link to your online portfolioSome people use LinkedIn as an online portfolio, but there are other websites that serve as portfolios for creatives, entrepreneurs, and specialists of one stripe or another. If you have an online portfolio, link to portfolio items from your resume. This is particularly effective if you post your resume online anywhere.Post your resume onlineSpeaking of online resume posting, you can upload your resume to your personal website, to your LinkedIn profile, and to other sites such as job search websites where it can be found by potential employers.Brand your resume to look like your online publishing assets One sure way to stand out in the crowd is to use design as a branding element across all of your online publishing assets. This includes your website, your social media accounts, and your resume. Instead of simply creating a bland black & white resume, if you post it online, brand it for easy recognition and credibility.Your resume is still an important part of your job search strategy. Make it more effective by ensuring it works with all of you online job search methods. This article is contributed by Right Management, www.rightmanagement.sg, the global career experts within the ManpowerGroup.