How to Tailor Your Resume for Recruiters

Chandler Macleod

March 3, 2018

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When was the last time you had a look over your resume?

The truth is, if your resume is not up to scratch, you won’t pass the 6 seconds a recruiter will spend on your resume.

Here are some tips on how to tailor your resume for recruiters.

Tailor Every Resume

To every role.

Yes, every role. Every time.

It seems tedious, but if you don’t do this, you’re going to be wasting the time you spent uploading your resume in the first place.

Demonstrate: Show how your previous roles demonstrated the required roles and responsibilities listed in the job you are applying for.
Be concise: you don’t need to list everything you did in that role, just the demonstrated skills and attributes that are being asked for in the role you’re applying for.
Focus on outcomes: focus on the outcomes or results you got rather than just listing the tasks you did.

Remove Unrelated Work Experience

You don’t have to list every single job you’ve ever had. That stint at your local grocery store may have been fun in high school, but if it’s not relevant to your current industry, cut it.

Your resume should generally only include jobs you’ve had in the past 10-15 years, unless an earlier position validates your qualifications and skills. Scratch any jobs unrelated to the one you’re applying for, unless it leaves your resume looking too sparse.

Explain Employment Gaps

Recruitment specialists don’t have time to chase you up to find out why you have a gap in your employment history. If you’ve taken a travel break or had some other absence from work, it’s perfectly fine to just list this on your resume.

If you’ve done something that has built skills during this time, like volunteering or short courses, it’s great to list that to show that you’ve not been dormant the whole time.

Keep Job Responsibilities Short

Once you’ve cut the fat and are left with relevant work experience worth mentioning, sift through your descriptions of said positions and the tasks mentioned.

Your potential new employer doesn’t need to see a novel of everyday tasks and responsibilities for each job. Keep it short and simple.

With resume writing, keep it simple and easy to understand. When writing the key tasks for each job, keep it to max of 5 tasks. People often list as many things as possible and it becomes difficult to understand what the core duties were.

Will Heaton, Recruitment Coordinator, Chandler Macleod

Length Does Not Matter

There are a lot of blogs out there which tell you to keep your resume to 2 pages. When it comes to writing for recruiters, it’s not the length that counts – it’s how concise and to the point your resume is. If it takes you 4 pages to demonstrate the skills and abilities listed on the job ad then so be it.

Hiring managers will be looking to see if you’ve paid attention to their job listing, so be sure to incorporate the qualifications from the job listing into your experience, skills and summary. Use the same words and terms as the employer, and remember to alter your resume for every job you apply for.