A Professional Resume That Slays Will Ignite Your Career

If you want to get a fantastic job, you’re going to need an amazing professional resume. You’re going to need a professional resume that slays. You see, your resume is like professional speed dating – you only get 30 seconds to make an impression. That’s why you want to make sure you’ve slapped on some lipstick and spritzed on some perfume so that you stand out – or so your resume stands out, anyways. People ask me all the time how to make a professional resume that lands you the job, and today I’m spilling my secret sauce. 

When I teach people how to make a professional resume that has employers banging on their doors to hire them, I always point to the KEIs to success. That’s not a typo, friends. I’m talking about KEIs. Knowledge. Experience. Influence. That’s the kind of information that needs to go in your resume so you can move up the career ladder when you feel ready. 

What are the KEIs to a Successful Professional Resume?

The knowledge component includes leadership, technical, industry-specific, and soft skills, as well as your education. But do you have to include ALL your education? The answer is NO. Do not include high school if you graduated more than five years ago. Beyond that, you need only to include the certification that is relevant to the position for which you are applying. If you don’t need your forklift certificate to be a receptionist, don’t bother mentioning it. The space on your resume is valuable real estate, and you don’t want to waste space. 

Experience Isn’t Just Responsibilities

The experience piece isn’t just job responsibilities. It’s also your achievements, accomplishments, advancements, accolades. Ideally, you want to quantify your accomplishments – they are more meaningful if they are measurable. You also want to include your upward mobility. If your resume contains lots of promotions, make sure to mention how long it took you to get promoted and why you won more senior roles. To keep building your professional resume up, make sure to save your kudos, your warm and fuzzy emails, and include that language in your resume. Again, like knowledge, the accomplishments or awards should apply to the level of the position you want. 

Your Professional Brand

When we’re talking about influence, we’re talking about your professional brand. That’s what you share through your career statement. Don’t use career objectives, this isn’t the nineties, leave that in the past where it belongs. Your career statement is a 1-2 sentence statement about what you represent, and that documents your professional brand. The influence content in your resume should reflect your industry influence, recommendations, and the relevant boards and committees on which you served.

Do you notice a theme throughout these categories of information? It’s the word relevant. It would help if you tailored your resume to the opportunity you want.  

 A successful professional resume will reflect all these KEIs. They also need to be in every email you send out, in your LinkedIn presence, on Facebook; everything needs to include the KEIs to success. But what else do you need to keep in mind when writing your resume? Career counseling online resources have a lot of opinions, but I’m going to give you mine.

How Do I Format My Resume? 

Firstly, I want to say that format is essential, but the content of your resume is more important. Don’t get so wrapped up in the packaging that you forget to put the present inside. The present, in this case, is the knowledge of all of the ways you can bless your future employer with your mad skills. 

People often ask how long a professional resume should be, and I tell them it should be one page per ten years of work experience. It doesn’t have to be chronological. It should be functional. A CV is only needed if specifically requested. As for design elements like photos, charts, graphs, and colors, only apply the aesthetic designs that will help you advance. They should be, again, our favorite word, relevant.  

You also, if you want to get hired, need to give these people a way to get a hold of you. Include your contact information and make sure your email address is professional looking – ideally a Gmail or something like that. Now isn’t the time for ILoveNurses69@hotmail.com to make an appearance. Nobody is impressed by that. 

And lastly, as we discussed before, keywords are, well, key! You need to include them in your resume, in your LinkedIn profile, in your interviews. To learn more about keywords, check out my blog on the topic! 

Why Your Resume Is So Important 

The thing is, if you’re sending out oodles of resumes and not getting interviews, more than likely, the issue is with your resume. Most of the time, these are easy fixes if you keep my advice in mind. So polish up that professional resume, share the gift of everything you bring to the table, and get yourself a better job! 

Are you demonstrating KEIs to success in your resume that slays? If you need help, I can rewrite your resume for you so that you primed to make your next move. Book your resume writing service today. You’ve taken the first step toward a powerful professional resume, so keep going. You’ve got this, sis! 

Is all this resume business stressing you out? Check out these resume fails!