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How to Write a Résumé That Stands Out

By: Amy Gallo

Share accomplishments, not responsibilities.

• Length: 2648 word count
• Publication Date: Dec 19, 2014
• Discipline: General Management
• Product #: H01SHP-PDF-ENG

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It can be hard to know how to make your resume stand out. Start by accepting that it’s going to take some time and effort. Don’t try to sit down and knock it out in an hour – you’re carefully crafting a marketing document. Open strong with a summary of your expertise. Use an accomplishments section after the opener to link your experience to the job requirements. You don’t want to waste space upfront on irrelevant job experience. It’s okay to be selective about what employment, achievements, and skills you include; after all, you should tailor your resume for each position. Give concrete examples of your expertise, quantifying your accomplishments with numbers where you can. Seek input from a mentor or friend who can review it and give you feedback. Lastly, create a personable LinkedIn profile to complement your resume.

Dec 19, 2014

Discipline:

General Management

Harvard Business Review Digital Article

H01SHP-PDF-ENG

2648 word count

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How to Make Your Resume Stand Out

• 08 Aug 2019

At 3.7 percent, the US unemployment rate is lower than it’s been in 50 years, giving those looking for work an advantage. But competition is always fierce for the most coveted roles at the hottest organizations. Before you submit your application, here are eight tips to help ensure your resume will get noticed.

1. Your Online Profile May Matter Most

If you play your cards right, recruiters will come to you. To make that happen, almost more important than a resume is a solid LinkedIn or online profile. Be sure your profile (and resume) tell a story about what you’ve done in your career, why you’ve done it, and the results you achieved. Use clear and simple language, and carefully sprinkle in keywords that are important for the role you desire and field you’re pursuing.

2. Use Keywords and Optimize Your Profile for Search

We live in a Google-centric world, and machines do a lot of the heavy lifting when it comes to screening applicants. According to CNBC , 75 percent of resumes are never reviewed by a human. To guarantee that yours is part of the other 25 percent, you should ensure that:

• Recruiters who are sourcing candidates on job boards find you
• Your resume makes it through the machine filtering software the majority of companies use to track applicants

Optimize your LinkedIn and online profiles for job sites like Indeed and Glassdoor, and bolster your resume using keywords commonly used in your field. Buzzwords, specific applications you use, and certifications you’ve earned can all help you rise to the top.

3. Show Your Creativity

You absolutely need to have a text-only version of your resume for uploading to company sites, but since most jobs come through networking , your actual resume and profile should show off your personality. Be sure that the PDF version you send to a personal contact within a company or bring to an interview is visually appealing.

Make yours stand out by using a modern (but not too funky) font, layout, color palette, and punchy copy. A unique twist or fresh look and feel on your resume could be what catches the hiring manager’s eye.

4. Action Speaks Louder than Words

Strong job candidates show, rather than just tell. Delivering a clear story about what you did in your previous roles is a start, but it’s more important to share the results of your actions and prove the impact you had on a project or at a company. Whenever possible, demonstrate your success with numbers that show efficiency, money saved or secured for a business, or goals exceeded.

For some jobs—like software developer, content developer, or social media expert—showing your proficiency may be critical to capturing a recruiter’s attention. You can tease your results on your resume, but actually directing readers to your personal website, social media channels, or developer proficiency site, like GitHub, can really bring your capabilities to life.

5. Tailor for the Job

It’s great to have a summary at the top of your resume that captures what you’re seeking in your next role, along with your core competencies and achievements. Equally important is tailoring your profile for each job. If you’re in the communications field, for example, you might play up your PR experience when it’s specifically called out in the position’s requirements. But if the title is Social Media Manager, Content Creator, or Internal Communications Specialist, the emphasis needs to be on the skills for those particular roles.

Related: How to Land Your Dream Job in 9 Steps

6. Less is More

In today’s tight talent market, HR professionals are short on time. A survey by Ladders says that most recruiters spend less than six seconds reviewing a resume. For that reason, keep your resume short. Limit it to one page if you have less than 10 years of professional work experience, and use succinct bullet points to make it easy to skim.

7. No Typos Allowed

Typos or grammatical errors on your resume can land it in the trash. A sloppy resume can potentially signal that you’re not serious about the role, or simply not buttoned-up and professional. When you’ve stared at your document a million times, however, it can be hard to spot errors. That’s why you should always have someone else proofread your work. Fresh eyes can zero in on mistakes more easily, so ask your most detail-oriented friend to be your editor.

8. Focus on Qualities and Skills

For many jobs, distinguishing qualities like teamwork, attention to detail, and ability to juggle multiple priorities are often considered more important than where you went to school or your GPA. Highlighting those competencies and how you learned and demonstrated them through summer jobs, community service, extracurricular activities , or even group projects at school matters. It doesn’t necessarily require years of professional experience to develop the skills required for certain roles.

Related: Tips for Transitioning from College to Your Career

Achieving Job Search Success

When you’re looking for work, keep in mind that there are many qualified candidates vying for the same job. Like a competitive sport, you need to bring you’re “A game” to your resume and make sure you’re primed for success.

Are you interested in advancing your career? Explore our catalog of online courses , and learn how you can gain the confidence and skills to succeed in business. And be sure to check out our other career development content , such as “ 6 Tips to Prepare for Your Next Salary Negotiation ” and “ How to Properly Follow Up After a Job Interview .”

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Here's an example of the perfect resume, according to Harvard career experts

Just the thought of writing a resume can lead to a huge headache.

But it doesn't have to be so complicated. Try to think of your resume as an award-winning short memoir about your professional experience.

Certainly, they aren't exactly the same (resumes shouldn't be written in a narrative style), but both share a few similarities: They tell the truth, differentiate you from others, highlight your most unique qualities and capture readers' attention .

Here's what a strong resume looks like, according to Harvard career experts (click here to enlarge):

IMAGE CREDIT: Harvard University, Office of Career Services / Harvard Extension School, Career and Academic Resource Center

Don't know where to start? The career experts suggest considering the essential tips below:

1. Tailor your resume

I've seen a shockingly large number of candidates send out a dozen resumes — that all look exactly the same — to a dozen different job openings.

A great resume should be tailored to the job and type of position that you're applying for. You don't have to change every little detail, but the resume itself should reflect the skills and experience that your potential employer would value.

2. Include your contact information

This is one of the top five resume mistakes people make, according to Harvard career experts.

Always be sure to include your email address and phone number. You can go the extra mile by adding your LinkedIn (just make sure it's up to date) or website that showcases examples of your work.

What not to include:

• A list of references: You don't even need to put "references available upon request" — hiring managers will ask for this if you advance in the hiring process
• A picture: It doesn't matter how strong your selfie game is — including your a photo of yourself makes you look unprofessional and could introduce unconscious bias
• Age or sex: Again, keep it professional. It's a resume, not a Tinder profile...

3. Use action verbs

Your resume is a marketing tool, so stick with action verbs. Avoid flowery and high-level claims like "results-oriented," "team player," "excellent communication skills" or "hard worker."

The goal is to deliver specific information about what you've done in your previous positions that led to measurable results.

Here are a few examples of action verbs that demonstrate certain qualities and skills:

Leadership:

• ORGANIZED guest lecture series featuring over 40 prominent researchers in the field of sleep medicine
• COORDINATED media campaigns for Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat
• LED over 20 design projects for nonprofits and social enterprises in the U.S., Mexico, India, Zambia and Australia

Communication:

• PRESENTED monthly, quarterly and annual spending reports to CEO
• COLLABORATED with business teams to streamline production release strategy plans
• DIRECTED implementation of a $50 million tech project for 10 major U.S. airports (scaled to support over 15,000 employees); increased productivity by 12% and reduced lost baggage expenses by 8%
• LAUNCHED first paging network across India; managed operations and customer support with a team of 70 customer care agents
• BUILT new checked baggage fees model and projected revenue stream of $12 million by forecasting changes in passenger baggage check-in behavior
• INSTALLED Macintosh systems for over 30 new hires; trained employees on usage and company computer policies

Organizational:

• REDUCED application testing time by 30% by automating shorter testing phases for off-cycle projects
• MONITORED a $1 billion annual IT budget for 2012 and 2013
• PREPARED sales activity and performance reports; reduced report response time by 50%

4. Make it presentable and easy to follow

Your hiring manager's time is valuable, and a resume that's all over the place isn't worth reading all the way through.

• Be consistent in format and content
• Balance white space
• Use consistent spacing, underlining, italics, bold and capitalization for emphasis
• List headings in order of importance
• Within headings, list information in reverse chronological order (most recent first)
• Make sure your formatting will translate properly if you converted to a PDF
• Keep it to just one page (if you're a mid- or late-career professional, it's fine to make it two pages)

Don't:

• Forget to proofread
• Use a narrative style
• Use personal pronouns (such as "I")
• Start each line with a date
• Use an elaborate template with too many colors

Dustin McKissen is the founder of McKissen + Company , a strategic communications firm in St. Charles, Missouri. He was also named one of LinkedIn's "Top Voices in Management and Corporate Culture." Follow him on LinkedIn here.

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Minorities Who 'Whiten' Job Resumes Get More Interviews

Minority job applicants are “whitening” their resumes by deleting references to their race with the hope of boosting their shot at jobs, and research shows the strategy is paying off.

In fact, companies are more than twice as likely to call minority applicants for interviews if they submit whitened resumes than candidates who reveal their race—and this discriminatory practice is just as strong for businesses that claim to value diversity as those that don’t.

These research findings should provide a startling wakeup call for business executives: A bias against minorities runs rampant through the resume screening process at companies throughout the United States, says Katherine A. DeCelles, the James M. Collins Visiting Associate Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School.

“Discrimination still exists in the workplace,” DeCelles says. “Organizations now have an opportunity to recognize this issue as a pinch point, so they can do something about it.”

DeCelles co-authored a September 2016 article about the two-year study in Administrative Science Quarterly called Whitened Resumes: Race and Self-Presentation in the Labor Market with Sonia K. Kang, assistant professor of organizational behavior and human resource management at the University of Toronto Mississauga; András Tilcsik, assistant professor of strategic management at the University of Toronto; and Sora Jun, a doctoral candidate at Stanford University.

“Discrimination still exists in the workplace. Organizations now have an opportunity to recognize this issue as a pinch point, so they can do something about it.”

In one study, the researchers created resumes for black and Asian applicants and sent them out for 1,600 entry-level jobs posted on job search websites in 16 metropolitan sections of the United States. Some of the resumes included information that clearly pointed out the applicants’ minority status, while others were whitened, or scrubbed of racial clues. The researchers then created email accounts and phone numbers for the applicants and observed how many were invited for interviews.

'Whitened' resumes produce more job call-backs for African Americans

Employer callbacks for resumes that were whitened fared much better in the application pile than those that included ethnic information, even though the qualifications listed were identical. Twenty-five percent of black candidates received callbacks from their whitened resumes, while only 10 percent got calls when they left ethnic details intact. Among Asians, 21 percent got calls if they used whitened resumes, whereas only 11.5 percent heard back if they sent resumes with racial references.

‘Pro-diversity’ employers discriminate, too

What’s worse for minority applicants: When an employer says it values diversity in its job posting by including words like “equal opportunity employer” or “minorities are strongly encouraged to apply,” many minority applicants get the false impression that it’s safe to reveal their race on their resumes—only to be rejected later.

In one study to test whether minorities whiten less often when they apply for jobs with employers that seem diversity-friendly, the researchers asked some participants to craft resumes for jobs that included pro-diversity statements and others to write resumes for jobs that didn’t mention diversity.

They found minorities were half as likely to whiten their resumes when applying for jobs with employers who said they care about diversity. One black student explained in an interview that with each resume she sent out, she weighed whether to include her involvement in a black student organization: “If the employer is known for like trying to employ more people of color and having like a diversity outreach program, then I would include it because in that sense they’re trying to broaden their employees, but if they’re not actively trying to reach out to other people of other races, then no, I wouldn’t include it.”

But these applicants who let their guard down about their race ended up inadvertently hurting their chances of being considered: Employers claiming to be pro-diversity discriminated against resumes with racial references just as much as employers who didn’t mention diversity at all in their job ads.

“This is a major point of our research—that you are at an even greater risk for discrimination when applying with a pro-diversity employer because you’re being more transparent,” DeCelles says. “Those companies have the same rate of discrimination, which makes you more vulnerable when you expose yourself to those companies.”

DeCelles sees an obvious disconnect between the companies’ pro-diversity messages and the actual acceptance of diverse applicants, yet she doesn’t believe employers are using these messages as a way to trap and weed out minorities that do apply.

“I don’t think it’s intended to be a setup,” she says. “These organizations are not necessarily all talk when they say they’re pro-diversity. Maybe the diversity values are there, but they just haven’t been translated from the person who writes the job ad to the person who is screening resumes.”

But clearly the findings reinforce an assumption many minorities already have: that the resume screening game is stacked against them and that they need to hide their race to level the playing field.

The researchers interviewed 59 Asian and African American students between the ages of 18 and 25 who were seeking jobs and internships. More than a third, 36 percent, said they whiten their resumes, and two-thirds knew friends or family members who had done so, all because they were afraid their resumes could be unfairly tossed aside if their race became obvious.

“The primary concern is that were trying to avoid a negative group-based stereotype that they felt could occur in a quick scan of a resume,” DeCelles says. “They whitened their resumes because they wanted to appear more mainstream.”

Different minority groups use different whitening techniques

Asian applicants often changed foreign-sounding names to something American-sounding—like substituting “Luke” for “Lei”—and they also “Americanized” their interests by adding outdoorsy activities like hiking, snowboarding, and kayaking that are common in white western culture.

One Asian applicant said she put her “very Chinese-sounding” name on her resume in her freshman year, but only got noticed after subbing in her American nickname later: “Before I changed it, I didn’t really get any interviews, but after that I got interviews,” she said.

Some Asians covered up their race because they worried employers might be concerned about a possible language barrier. “You can’t prove your English is good in a resume scan, but you can if you can get to the interview,” DeCelles says.

Meanwhile, African Americans toned down mentions of race from black organizations they belonged to, such as dropping the word “black” from a membership in a professional society for black engineers. Others omitted impressive achievements altogether, including one black college senior who nixed a prestigious scholarship from his resume because he feared it would reveal his race.

“Some applicants were willing to lose what could be seen as valuable pieces of human capital because they were more worried about giving away their race,” DeCelles says.

Some black students bleached out this information because they were concerned they might come across as politically radical or tied to racially controversial causes in a way that could turn off an employer.

“People … want to have like an awesome black worker but they want one who they feel like fits within a certain box and like very much will conform and like lay low and just kind of do what’s expected of them, and they’re not necessarily looking for the outspoken like political radical person,” a black college senior said. “I feel like race is just one of the many aspects where you try to just like buff the surface smooth … and pretend like there’s nothing sticking out.”

“I wouldn’t consider whitening my resume because if they don’t accept my racial identity, I don’t see how I would fit in that job”

Other interviewed students were staunchly opposed to resume whitening. Some even said they purposely left in racial references as a way of sniffing out employers that might not welcome minorities. One student said, “If blackness put a shadow over all (my resume), then it probably isn’t the job I want to be in,” while another said, “I wouldn’t consider whitening my resume because if they don’t accept my racial identity, I don’t see how I would fit in that job.”

How to address discriminatory hiring practices

It’s time for employers to acknowledge that bias is hardwired into the hiring system and that prejudice is clouding the screening of qualified applicants, says DeCelles, whose research focuses on the intersection of organizational behavior and criminology.

Business leaders should start by taking a closer look at their resume screening processes. Blind recruitment is one possible solution, where information about race, age, gender, or social class are removed from resumes before hiring managers see them.

Companies can also perform regular checks for discrimination in the screening process, for example by measuring how many minorities applied for a position and comparing that with the percentage of those applicants who made the first cut.

“Organizations can now see very clearly that this is why they are not meeting their diversity goals,” DeCelles says. “They can’t just put a message on recruitment ads and be done. They need to follow through with a clear structure and staff training. They need to make goals and then continually evaluate the outcome in order to meet those goals.”

The bottom line for business leaders who are hiring, she says: “Once you receive applications, you need to make sure they are evaluated fairly.”

[Image: sturti ]

Related Reading:

Black Business Leaders Series: Putting Diversity to Work 6 Steps to Building a Better Workplace for Black Employees Pro Basketball Coaches Display Racial Bias When Selecting Lineups

Your Insight Needed!

According to this research, racism in hiring is still alive and well. What's the solution? Add your comment below.

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Improve Your Résumé by Turning Bullet Points into Stories

• Jane Heifetz

Examples from real CVs.

There’s nothing wrong with listing your definitive actions and quantifiable results on your resume — this is standard advice. The problem is, however, that you may not be telling an employer what they really need to know. Details are important, but what’s your story? By telling a story in your resume, employers will be able to see what you can do for them based on what you’ve been able to do in the past.

You’re searching for a new job. Updating your LinkedIn profile and résumé. Describing your accomplishments in two- to three-line bullet points that start with powerful action verbs and end with quantifiable results.

• JH Jane Heifetz  is the founder and principal of Right Résumés and a contributing editor to HBR. She was HBR’s Product Development Director and Executive Editor for many years. Here’s her  LinkedIn profile .

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