How to Write a Resume in 2024 | Beginner's Guide

An outstanding resume is your best chance of getting the job of your dreams in the fast-paced world of job searching. However, since the trend is ever-changing, how can you make sure your resume is unique in 2024? Don't worry—we'll walk you through every process stage in this resume writing guide for beginners

During a job search, your resume is potentially the most significant document you will write. Thus, investing the effort to understand the appropriate format for a resume will greatly speed up and simplify the job search process. You can complete tasks that would need hours of careful study and investigation in minutes. All you need to do is stick to our easy, step-by-step resume writing instructions. A strong resume eventually allows you to make a favorable impression and ultimately determine whether or not you will be invited for an interview.

What is a resume?

First, let's go over the basics. We should understand the purpose of a resume before learning how to write one

The word "resume" comes from the French. This word is ideal because a resume is precisely that—a concise, to-the-point overview of your professional achievements, abilities, qualifications, training, past employment, and previous employers. It's also known as a curriculum vitae (CV). Receiving an interview invitation is the goal of a resume. Your goal should be to prove to the company that you'd be a suitable match for the position.

Before beginning to write your resume

We suggest spending a few minutes to research before going on to the resume writing process. These few minutes can ultimately make your job search much easier and save you hours of distress

Before you write a resume, we advice you to do the following research

Do some research about the job for which you are applying. Outstanding resumes are customised for a certain position. Asking yourself these three questions when you read the job posting will help you do this: What are the most important keywords? Which nouns, adjectives, and phrases are used frequently? Which language is used by the company in question

Find your strengths; doing so will help you focus on the aspects of your resume that you wish to emphasize. Who are your friends, family, and coworkers? What are your strong points and areas for improvement? Additionally, consider your previous achievements. Which skills and talents enabled you to succeed in the past

Building Your Resume

 The next step is to begin creating your resume after selecting your favorite resume creator. Take these easy steps

Choose a Template: Go for a clean profession-appropriate template that complements your style and industry

Enter Your Information: Please provide your contact information, professional summary, employment history, education, accomplishments, and abilities

Customise: Make your resume unique for every job application by highlighting your experiences and talents that are pertinent

Proofread: Verify again for typos, grammatical mistakes, and formatting consistency

Save and Export: To ensure cross-platform and device compatibility, save your resume in PDF format.

Choose the Right Format for Your Resume

Before you start adding information to your resume, be sure it looks good.

Ultimately, hiring managers scan your resume after noticing its appearance for the first time. Thus, now is your finest opportunity to create a memorable first impression. Select the appropriate resume format first. Depending on where you are in your career, choose this.

Are you an experienced professional? After that, you want to choose a resume structure that highlights your experience.

Do you recently graduate? Then, any useful skills you've built up while studying should be highlighted on your resume.

Are you going to change careers? The greatest outcomes will then come from a combination of the two.

Enter Your Contact Details

After discussing formatting, let's discuss the content that appears on your resume, which is its primary goal. Adding your contact details should be the first thing you do when filling out the contents of your resume.

This is a very simple but important section. To make it easier for the hiring manager to identify your contact information, it should be placed at the top of your resume in a special resume heading.

Start with your professional summary

Start writing your professional summary. If you've already finished other sections of your resume, it's fairly simple to complete this one. Your professional title should be described in the first bullet point. Remember to include your years of experience as well. If the number is particularly high, write it in bold. Rewrite the standout sections of your resume into short bullet points. Get your prospective employer to continue reading by tease. A professional summary should contain a lot of appropriate keywords. Consider ATS(applicant tracking system). You may access automatic pre-screenings with the help of this. Try measuring each accomplishment. You'll appear even more professional by doing this.

Your resume will seem terrible even if everything else on it is flawless if you write your phone number incorrectly or misspell your email address. It's a lost chance if the recruiting manager is unable to get in touch with you.

Emphasize Your Work Experience

The most important part of your resume is the section on your work experience. This is your chance to present your past achievements and responsibilities and sell yourself. You will know most of the information regarding resume creation if you can complete this portion. When writing about your work experience, there are many best practices to follow. But let's start with the fundamentals before getting into all the nits and grits

Give a summary of your education

You should include a list of your degrees and any relevant academic achievements in the education summary area. It may be the least important component of your resume, depending on your degree and professional stage.

Are you an experienced professional?

As you get more experience, your work history and hard skills take priority over the education part. Put another way, the section on schooling should come after the portion on your professional experience, not the other way around. It should not be overly lengthy either. For example, your grades are no longer relevant. Including the name of your university, the heading of your degree, and the year of your graduation is sufficient.

Have you freshly graduated?

Then, one of your best cards to play is still your degree. Practically speaking, this means that your education section needs to appear first on your resume, midway between your work experience and professional summary sections

Promote both your hard and soft skills

You should be aware that there are two kinds of abilities: hard skills and soft skills before you begin writing.

Hard skills are measurable, adaptable, and most importantly, observable. It takes time, conscious work, and training to get them.

Examples of hard talents include proficiency with computers, language, the hands-on arts, mathematics, project management, etc.

Your personality qualities are linked to your soft skills. Your upbringing may have included these talents, or you may have picked them up later in life through self-improvement. These abilities can benefit both your personal and professional lives.

Soft skills include a variety of abilities, such as leadership, creativity, time management, communication, and decision-making.

End up with a cover letter

Almost finished the resume-writing process. After selecting an appropriate resume template and doing some minor tweaking and proofreading, you should be able to hit the send button, right? Not exactly, though. We would not at least advice against sending it just now.

The truth is that without a cover letter, resumes are frequently ignored. You've spent so much time creating it; it would be a tragedy if something were to happen to you. A strong cover letter might help you differentiate yourself from the competitors.

The best resume-building tool in India is JobsCruze, which may help you advance your career. We'll help you every step of the way, from building an outstanding resume to the hiring process and landing your ideal job, whether it's through our sophisticated online resume generator, professional resume writing services, or even free career coaching from industry experts. Our hiring success rate for applicants is 99%!