The Half Page Resume is ALL You Need to Get a Great Job
You heard it here first. In the next couple years, your resume will only be one half of a page. You may be thinking this will never happen, but please consider the following:
- Employers do a 10 second scan of your resume today. Why give them a novel when they just want the short story?
- Computers and keywords do most of the heavy lifting for larger employers. “Optimized” resumes rely on keywords. In a half page resume, you can get a ton of keywords in this space.
- You can direct them via a short link to any of your online profiles if they want more information.
- We can stop wasting paper!
In sales, you always leave the customer wanting more. When you apply to any job, you are selling yourself. That piece of paper is a critical part of this sales process. The resume is where many of you go wrong. You have to understand the 10 second scan by the employer. Resumes that have what they are looking for will be considered immediately. If this isn’t clear, you will never get a response from the employer (sound familiar?).
You must be able to tell your story in one half page.
I just got done hiring for an office manager in our office. I had over 80 resumes to sift through. The resumes that caught my attention simply said “office manager” as the objective. The ones I chose to interview also backed up their resume title with their proficiencies. This keyword list included things like payroll administration, administration tasks, scheduling, filing, customer service and things like that. Ironically, many of those proficiencies where in the job description. Also, all this information was in the top half of the resume. I did not need to search for anything.
Your challenge is to create a half page resume that is unique to each job you apply to. It starts with your name and address. The next line for is objective. The objective should simply be the title of the job you are applying to assuming you are a fit for that position. (Applying to jobs you don’t qualify for is a huge waste of time. Read this article.) The next area should be your competencies. This is your keyword section that lets the employer know you have experience in the areas they need. Follow that up with your education, training certifications or anything relevant to prove you have the required level of experience and schooling to be considered.
All this information can fit in the top third of the resume. This area has to sell you to the employer or they will not look anywhere else. This area has to match their job. If you can’t match their job with title and competencies, don’t apply to that job; it is a waste of time.
To get to a half page, you can then add your work history and simply put the company you worked for, time spent there and your job title(s). Finally, add a link of your social profile of your liking to expand on your experience. Remember, you control what is online in your social profiles so they should also match the jobs you are applying for.
Within 15 minutes, I was able to go through about 80 resumes because they didn’t immediately tell me what I needed to know. Many resumes had things at the very top using sentences with words like energetic, strong communication, team player, quick learner, self-starter, great organization and highly motivated. Employers do not want to see this because they will assume you already have these things if you have been successful. They want to see your technical skills and how they align with their company.
So, create a half page resume and give it to someone you do not know and see if they can immediately tell you what you do. If they can tell, you are on your way to many more interviews!