A well-crafted resume plays a significant role in your dream career, and its presentation and content matters greatly. A resume should serve as your best personal marketing tool—a flyer or brochure of sorts—showcasing your skills, experiences, and achievements to potential employers.
We see a lot of resumes at Emerge, and we work with Candidates to help improve, optimize and refresh their resumes in order to best position themselves for their dream career. This guide focuses on the the art of crafting impactful resume bullet points that capture attention, highlight your strengths, and propel you towards success in your job search journey.
Formatting Your Bullets
Your resume will be the first impression you make on a potential employer, and it’s crucial to make it count. In fact, the average resume is reviewed for 14 seconds! The format need to be incredible clear and concise.
We are often asked about the length and format of a resume. Length should always be respective to the length of your career. Chief level executives should have several pages. Entry level sales representatives should not.
Similarly, bullets work better than paragraphs. Serving as short, powerful summaries of your accomplishments and responsibilities, bullets make it easier for hiring managers to assess your qualifications at a glance.
In most cases, each experience summary should be limited to 3 to five bullets each. Use the job description to highlight those aspects of those experiences most pertinent to this job. However, it’s a best practice to only use one company header for experiences where you had several titles. If we list the company name with each promotion it is often mistaken as a new job. Get credit where credit is due!
Finally, in a data driven world, make sure your resume includes quantifiable data and numbers. Add context, depth and color to your resume with tangible details (e.g., number of direct reports, budget size, expense reductions, percentage of quota, NPS, etc.)
Tips for Writing Engaging Bullet Points
It seems only fitting that a blog post about bullet points should include some bullet points, so here are our best practices and tips on how to write resume bullet points that are engaging and will help you stand out in the talent pool.
- Customize For Each Opportunity: As you submit your resume to an application, it falls into a pile. The main method recruiters approach that pile is to sort it by keyword relevancy. Meaning, the more the keywords in your resume match the keywords in your job description the higher your resume will rank in their search. Therefore, as you are choosing which bullets to include in your resume, make sure to include those that speak to the top three requirements or qualifications listed in the respective job ad. The more your resume hits those requirements and qualifications, the higher the ranking.
If your current or former employers used a euphemism for common occurring language, then use the common vernacular, or better yet, refresh your resume to use the language in the job description. Mirroring is not only an effective way to increase rank results, it is also a very strong indication that you understand the employer environment.
- Incorporate Industry-Specific Terminology: Is there an emerging vernacular in your space? Use it in your resume! If there is a prevalent topic that you are working with in your current role, use your resume to highlight that you are keeping up with industry trends. Bonus points if you can include in these bullets how you have adapted, implement and utilize AI.
- Proofread!: Your resume is more likely than not to have a format, grammar or spelling error in it. If this is the document that tells your story, it deserves to be proofread. In this modern world, we strongly suggest that you print your resume and review it. Then hand it to a peer and a mentor to do the same.
Software/App Skills
Every resume should include a list of prevalent software skills, but keep the name of the proprietary system off. Don’t neglect to include the enterprise system you’ve forgotten the name of—track it down. One tip we offer is to go back to the old employer and review their job descriptions to recall the names of the systems you choose to forget. In 2024, every candidate should have a technical stack. Again, we need to reittarate relevancy. If SAP and Excel skills are listed in the job description, these should be software skills you should list fist.
It also helps recruiters and hiring managers quickly assess your qualifications and suitability for the role, especially if the job requires proficiency in certain software or specific certifications.
Emerge Can Help
By following the tips and guidelines outlined in this comprehensive guide, you will create a compelling resume that highlights your achievements, skills, and experiences in a concise and engaging manner. Embrace these strategies, tailor your resume to each job application, and confidently embark on your job search journey armed with a resume that truly showcases your value and potential.
And if all else fails, contact someone from the Emerge team. We are the region’s top employment firm, and we are deeply experienced in making sure our Clients shine, both in their resumes and in their careers.
