A Perfect Resume in 2023. How It Looks Like?

Last year, the labor market suffered a major crisis, but it did not stagger for long and went through a transformation. The first step in finding a dream job is, of course, creating a resume. Although, today the HR managers mostly ask that you to send a CV (latin for curriculum vitae – “the course of life”), which is a description of biographical data, acquired competencies and professional skills.

CV gives more details on the education and academic activities, as well as skills, work experience, awards and certificates, achievements. A resume contains a brief description of your previous places of work, key skills, accomplishments, and additional information relevant to the job.

Employers usually spend up to 1-2 minutes browsing through your resume, so the information must be concise, well-structured and the text should look alive to spark interest. HR manager has to see the benefits you can give to business.

The structure of the provided information should be logical:

1. Give your contact details, also adding some profiles in social networks. For example, Telegram, Facebook or LinkedIn. Unfortunately, HR might not appreciate your Instagram page with pictures from vacation. So it’s better to add the pages from social networks where they can read about your achievements.
2. Education. Indicate your college degree and specialization. Don’t mention all additional trainings, seminars, etc. here. If you have significant experience, focus on that, but if you haven’t worked a lot, emphasize on all the training you completed (read below about the relevant section for the information on additional education in your resume)
3. Previous places of work: don’t list all of them, 3-4 jobs with your duties (briefly) is enough. Also, add two or three lines with your achievements on previous positions, because the recruiter knows the responsibilities of each position, but achievements look more interesting and will distinguish you from other candidates.
4. Don’t list the contacts of your former employers unless the HR manager specifically requests it.
5. Your skills: indicate only the professional skills and proficiency (languages, software, etc.

You can also provide additional information about yourself mentioning trainings, seminars, webinars. But it should be really relevant for the company you want to join.

Another cool tip: modify and adjust the information in your resume for each specific position. Some companies value the knowledge of software like Trello, others don’t care about it. Try to figure out how you can adjust your resume depending on the requirements of a certain vacancy.

Moreover, if you’re into a creative profession like graphic design where your work can be seen visually, add a portfolio to your resume.

Leave your marital status, number of children and all other personal information for the tax agent. By the way, it is forbidden by law in the USA to specify the information on religion, marital status and age in a resume. In case this is important for the employer, it is stated in the job description or can be requested personally.

Personal qualities are another interesting point. “I am a leader, sociable, creative and disciplined person” is great, but after reading this the employer will think: “Whatever.” And this information will not have any impact on the hiring decision.

Try to present your personal qualities in a more informative and interesting way. For example, following each quality, write the percentage of how good you are in that: “Social skills – 85%”, “Discipline – 91%”, etc. Just don’t put 100% everywhere, no one will believe you anyway, and if they do, during the probation period you’ll be sweating to prove these 100%. Or after each quality, add a sentence showing how you applied it at your previous jobs.

As for designing your perfect resume, there are many online resources with classy resume templates. Be sure to check them out and make your resume interesting to look at, which will also demonstrate your creative approach. After all, the black letters on a white sheet of paper and text highlighted in bold look like something that came from 2008. 

Adding a photo to your resume or not is up to you. But usually, the one with a photo attracts more attention, because most employers want to visualize a person to associate with all the forthcoming text. Keep in mind that the photo should be modest – a picture from the party, with a glass in hand or by the sea is unlikely to create the right impression.

Although, for instance, in many European countries adding a photo to resume is not recommended. In order to protect themselves from the appearance-based discrimination claims, some companies don’t consider resumes with photos at all.

Compose your perfect resume carefully, taking into account the requirements of the company, and get your dream job before the others!