WCPO-TV: National Update Your Resume Month

With September being National Update Your Resume Month, Shannon Lehwald, peer career coach program manager at the University of Cincinnati, spoke with WCPO about the importance of refreshing your CV.

As the nation’s economy continues to rebound from COVID restrictions, many Americans are finding a fresh resume useful when competing in the job market.

“It takes a recruiter anywhere from six to 15 seconds to scan a resume before they decide to move forward with it or pass it along,” Lehwald told WCPO for Cincy Lifestyle. “So make sure you have a lot of visible space on your resume and don’t try to cramp everything into one page. The more white space you have available to use, the better.”

Listen to Lehwald on WCPO's Cincy Lifestyle segment.

Lehwald offers some tips when it comes to writing a resume.

1. Resumes can be one to two pages in length.
2. If there are two pages, makes sure there is enough information to justify the second page.
3. Employers would rather see all your relevant and related experience on two pages than not be able to read small, cramped information on a single page.
4. Have white space open to help the resume flow and not look crowded.
5. Use quantitative/numerical data in your experience bullet points. It helps measure your experiences, and the visualization of the numbers forces the reader to pause and spend more time with your resume.

1. Don’t use paragraphs since recruiters read quickly and are less likely to read through paragraphs. Detailed but concise bullet points are better.
2. Objectives are no longer necessary. Employers know the objective of you submitting the resume.
3. Don’t use templates, text boxes or tables. Companies use an Applicant Tracking System to scan resumes long before a human sees them and only 10% of the information in a template, table or text box gets scanned by the system.
4. Don’t list all your work history in one large section. Be strategic instead by moving experiences related to the job you are applying for into separate sections. It helps certain experiences get showcased and helps the reader find key pieces of information quickly.

Learn more about career coaching at UC.

Featured image at top: Courtesy Unsplash