Resumes are not just black and whites pages. Resumes are extensions of who the applicant is. It is the black and white of their life, personality and attitudes. A good human resource person can read all these in a resume.
Tips from a Financial Advisor Recruiter
A Resume Should be the Right Length
One financial advisor recruiter was fast to disagree that resumes should only fit on one page. Generally, the rule of thumb is less than five pages. The key element in the length of a resume is that it should provide the information needed by employers especially in finance industry jobs. If the applicant has lots of work experience, they should go for three pages or longer but if they have few work experiences, two to three pages is enough.
Make the Resume Fit the Needs
Financial advisor recruiters are known to just scan resumes for no more than 20 seconds, so what are they looking for? Easy. The set of skills should speak out for what the applicant can do for the company. They don’t need lengthy resumes babbling about past experiences, what they need is to know whether the applicant fits the puzzle or not.
Leave Out the Objective
Many applicants think that putting an objective would add an extra advantage to them, however it is the contrary. An objective expresses more the needs of the applicant than that of the company.
Instead of using an objective, use a positioning statement. A positioning statement would simply state what the applicant can do that could be of help to the company that they are applying to. By using this strategy, the hiring manager or human resource personnel can immediately see the applicant’s value.
Achievements and Responsibilities
A resume cannot be determined to be the best among piles of other resumes if it cannot enlighten the hiring manager as to what qualities sets that specific applicant apart from the other applicants. For the resume to be effective, it should summarize the job responsibilities in few sentences and then focuses on providing information about quantifiable achievements.
No to Typographical Error
In any type of writing, one piece of advice that will always keep coming is having the written material be read and proofread, not only by the one who made it but by other people as well. Fresh eyes can see mistakes more easily than the one who is already too familiar with the writing. This principle is still applicable in writing resumes.
Irrelevant Information
Some of the irrelevant information that people usually put in their resumes is their hobbies, achievements, religious or political affiliations, marital status and number of children. Hobbies can be listed if they are relevant to the work that the applicant is applying to but personal matters like number of children and marital status are taboos even during interviews as they can be deemed to be a form of discrimination.
Prepare an Internet Version of the Resume
Prepare an internet-ready version of the resume. Some hiring managers will require having resumes sent to their emails even though they already have the black and white copy. The usual reason for this is because they are using a program to run through all the resumes in it. The program would then create a ranking based on how the applicants fit in with the company’s current needs.