Career Warrior Podcast #319) Grandma’s Resume Checklist [NEW YEAR 2024]

Episode Transcript

Chris Villanueva 0:00
Folks need to go beyond just the job descriptions of the things that they’ve done on a daily basis, they need to talk about the actual results and metrics that they have affected for the company.

And welcome to the Let’s Eat, Grandma Career Warrior Podcast. My name is Chris Villanueva and I am going to bring you grandma’s checklist. This is your resume masterpiece, we are forming void of all of the common mistakes that are holding jobseekers back in 2024. So in this episode, we will cover those mistakes. We’ll talk about design and how to make sure that your resume has a focused format that speaks volumes at a glance. We’ll talk about keywords, applicant tracking systems, as well as phrasing, I know that these are the things that bogged down job seekers. And I’m just so excited because I will kind of just blast through these checklist items. But we’ll make sure to cover all of our bases here.

For those of you who don’t know, I’m the founder and CEO of Let’s Eat, Grandma, a resume writing service for mid to senior level professionals. Head on over to letseatgrandma.com to hop on a free call to discuss what a resume writing packages can do for you.

Alright, so let’s talk about this checklist just kicking off the new year the right way. How did I come up with this list? Well, first of all, I have been observing resume after resume. I’ve looked at thousands of resumes at this point and especially the ones that have come up lately, I’m noticing a common pattern of things that I just wish everyone would take care of some common mistakes that I’ve seen come up, especially in these last few months, as I’ve been observing many resumes come through our website.

And I do want to note that there are – I’m not gonna use the word plethora, because I think it’s just a goofy word – but there are a plethora, a plethora of resume mistakes that I could touch upon. I mean, there’s got to be like over a hundred that I can probably name but I will focus on a list that goes under 10. These are seven common mistakes here that I really think that if most people covered all of these, they would definitely be covering their bases there. So I will also let you know that this resume checklist is in alignment with our initiative at Let’s Eat, Grandma to research and understand industry best practices and listen to our clients. So I’m really glad and grateful to be doing this podcast today as it works with our service, I think nicely.

Alright, so without further ado, here’s Grandma’s Resume Checklist for 2024.

Number one, use a single column format instead of a double column format. Alright, so I knew that this is a tricky one, because so many templates out there use two columns in the document, you have the resume, you open it up, and on the left hand side, you might see something that says summary and skills and on the right hand side you have professional experiences that get pushed on over to the right hand side of the paper. This is not ideal for two reasons. The first reason is that applicant tracking systems may or may not scan this properly. We don’t know how every single ATS scans or parses keywords but it is better to take the safe route and just go single column to make sure that your resume gets all of those lovely keywords that you’ve been putting time into those get scanned properly, all ATS conversations aside, it is a better cleaner, more modern look to go single column.

And to ensure that those valuable experiences, those professional experiences are evenly distributed across the page, what you do when you opt for single column is you give all of those professional experiences a better view on the resume. So when somebody opens up your resume, they’re not sort of just shoved on over to the right hand side but it looks a lot cleaner. And yes, you are forced to make some decisions on how you want to align or how you want to order the resume. Sometimes it’s tough. It’s like “oh, I don’t want to put my education below my professional experiences because I think it looks it looks impressive, and I want people to see both at the same time.”

No, make a choice on what you want employers to see first. Obviously, we want to lead in with a summary or profile statement at the top. But after that, it’s really important to decide what you want people to focus their attention on because a lot of these hiring managers don’t have a lot of attention. So go for single column work with the ATS and make sure folks can see what they need to see first.

All right, the second item on Grandma’s Resume Checklist is remove ATS obstructions. Remove obstructions that work against the applicant tracking system and again we fall into some gray area here because is not every ATS is the same. I’ve been trying to say this for years on end. But we do know that there are certain things that tend to get in the way of a good scan again, like the double column, single column thing, things like and I’ll list them out right here, tables, pictures, charts. Last but not least really weird icons that kind of fall where the bullet points should be in your professional experience, you got to remove that stuff, just trust me as different as you think it is, or as interesting as it thinks that you think it makes your resume look.

It doesn’t really add the value that you think it does, I would focus instead on the differentiation and this creative choices. I would make that about the content in these things that you’ve done throughout your career, put all of your energy and focus on that kind of stuff, and not the sort of bells and whistles that work against the ATS. Again, I would just pick a template, I’m giving you the first two items that are focused on design and formatting a single column resume and one that doesn’t have these sort of obstructions. Just choose a template that follows these two things that I’m letting you know about. And that should take care of everything.

Alright, checklist item number three, make sure that your bullet points are no longer than two lines. Okay, so this is a big one. And I’m using the number two, I think as a good guiding point that isn’t something that has to be followed to a tee every single time, right, there are some bullet points that deserve to be one line. There are very rare exceptions, but bullet points that deserve to kind of shift on over to three, but not really. I would really make sure that folks check every single bullet point. And if they start to look a little bit long, and then you got to make sure to cut that down. They are no longer bullet points at that point. They are paragraphs and these hiring managers who have no time on their hands are not going to actually delve into the stuff that you put there on the sections here on this bullet points.

So if you want to make sure that people read your accomplishments, they read all this valuable stuff, including in your resume, then make darn sure to use concise phrasing. Of course we do this by kicking off each bullet point with an action verb and including things such as the results wherever we can, the skill that we use the keyword. But at the end of the day, that bullet point should not go over about two lines.

Alright, grandma’s checklist item number four, check spelling mistakes, especially names. Check for spelling mistakes, especially names. This one’s a little bit tricky, because a lot of folks are they say that they’re looking over the resume and they’re they’re catching spelling mistakes and sometimes there’s a debate about whether typos matter. Yes, they do. Because sometimes a typo not gonna say disqualifies you every single time but typos or liabilities in your resume that may work against you. So names are one that we see come up over and over again.

In terms of mistakes, I’ve seen brand names misspelled things like Salesforce, Salesforce, HubSpot. I’ve seen city names misspelled. I have seen actual names of organizations misspelled, this is a tough one, because oftentimes Microsoft Word will not catch these things, sometimes they will. But sometimes it’s just your eye skipping over them, because you think, “Oh, I’m not gonna misspell that?” Well, I’ve seen it time and time. Again, a lot of folks are making these mistakes. So just do a quick pass through your resume. And in that pass, and just focus on spelling mistakes and focus on the names especially I love printing out resumes on paper. When I wrote resumes exclusively for Let’s Eat, Grandma, I would print out every single resume and I would catch things that I would not have caught on the screen. So just do a double check. And that is something that I wish everyone would do here.

Alright, number five, don’t go too broad with your resume, especially where keywords are concerned. So we’re delving into the content territory, the things that are a little bit difficult to implement on a resume the stuff that takes some more research, but far too often I’m seeing resumes that try to catch every single position title that the candidate might be applying for. So say you’re applying for a senior project manager position, and then you’re also applying for a project manager position. So that seems like okay, I can use the same resume for both. But sometimes I will see a skill section that is just way too long, like 20 to 30 skills within a section. I’ll see bullet points, professional experience bullet points that just encapsulate everything that this person has done.

It is much better to have two targeted focused resumes that are focused on a smaller set of keywords. Don’t focus on the entire broad set of keywords, but focus two different resumes on two different smaller sets of keywords, and you will have more success, you will have hiring managers that see your resume is much more targeted, you’ll be a candidate that looks like a better fit for the position so I would encourage you to definitely get as focused as possible there.

Alright, number six, inject some excitement into that summary. Listen, Grandma was reading your resume the other day, and she is bored. She was looking at your resume summary and she’s like, “I’ve seen this over and over again, this is the same exact thing as the last person.” Trust me, folks, you can get more exciting, more differentiated, just more unique. And that summary and I’m literally out of all the ones I’ve listed out.

So far, I’m speaking probably to the vast majority of the folks listening. I’m speaking to 95% of you because most folks think about crafting a summary and they think it should just sort of just be like kind of like a few sentences that are strung together that include who you are as a professional and include just a few of the right keywords go beyond just talking about I am such and such professional with this many years of experience. And I’m competent in this thing, go beyond that inject a little bit of excitement. And what makes you unique as a candidate, I’m telling you, this summary is an opportunity for you to stand out and actually encourage folks to keep reading your resume, it’s the thing that sits at the very top of your document.

And if you just include something that looks like every other project manager, I’ll use that example again, then you run the risk of just having somebody glaze over your resume and just skip everything else. So just inject some of those things that make you different, I love to use the example of specific numbers and career highlights. If you’re somebody who’s senior level, it is more than okay, and even my mid level folks to to an extent but it’s more than okay to include a career highlight section.

For example, within that summary, I had somebody who spoke five different languages and speaking multiple languages is something that would have been an advantage for this person as they applied for jobs. So heck include those sorts of things that other folks don’t necessarily have on the resumes and check some excitement into that summary.

Alright, number seven and the final thing that I will list for Grandma’s Checklist of 2024: Be more accomplishment-oriented, especially with your most recent experience. Okay, so I know I touched upon it a little bit in the summaries thing but folks need to go beyond just the job descriptions of the things that they’ve done on a daily basis. They need to talk about the actual results and numbers and metrics that they have affected for the company. I know this is a tall order. I know that this is something that takes some research and time and you may not have been given those numbers, you may not be privy to those numbers. But I’m telling you, for gosh sakes, there is something you can include there to go beyond just the job description to make you seem more like an achiever rather than a doer. I don’t know who came up with that phrase earlier but I just think it makes so much sense.

If you want to focus on one thing in particular, I know again, I’m not asking you to go all the way back to 1996 and to reshape your entire resume professional experience there, but at least put some effort and focus onto that more most recent experience. So many hiring managers are looking at what you are doing currently, and the professional capacity or like whatever the last thing is that you’ve done job wise, and they want to say how is this person made a difference for the organization. Therefore, how can they make a difference for mine right now.

So if you are somebody who in some way, shape, or form has made the organization’s life better, you’ve made a process simplified to reduce headache for folks. If you have, for example, helped increase the revenue capacity for a company you cut down on costs. Somehow, you help folks feel friggin like they loved being at work like 10% more, I don’t know, whatever it is, include that in your most recent experience. I’m telling you, even if you’re listening to this now and you’re saying okay, I probably can’t include anything I’m telling you. There’s always room for improvement here in this aspect of your resume. And I would encourage you to just go one step further and boost that most recent professional experience section.

Alright, so this wraps up Grandma’s Checklist for a better resume. This is Grandma’s New Year’s checklist 2024. I hope that this was valuable for you and again, this doesn’t cover everything that there is to improve a resume. For example, what about things like grammatical little mistakes or what about having a resume that is too lengthy, but instead I just focused on the things that I saw, especially in Q4 of this past year. The things that I really tried to double down on in terms of fixes so I hope this was valuable.

Did I miss anything that you think was absolutely essential in this list? I would love it if you can repost this episode on your LinkedIn profile. Tag me, let me know if I missed anything. And I would love to hear from you as a fellow Career Warrior. Again, I am the founder and CEO of Let’s Eat, Grandma, a resume service that helps take the pain out of the job search for all our fellow professionals out there.

So check us out at letseatgrandma.com and we would love to hear from you as well. Alright, Career Warriors, this wraps it up for today and I can’t wait to see you in two weeks Career Warrior Podcast.

Before you go remember, if you’re not seeing the results you want and your job search, our highly trained team of professional resume writers here at Let’s Eat, Grandma can help head on over to letseatgrandma.com/podcast to get a free resume critique and $70 off any one of our resume writing packages. We talk all the time on the show about the importance of being targeted in your job search and with our unique writing process and focus on individual attention. You’ll get a resume cover letter and LinkedIn profile that are highly customized and tailored to your goals to help you get hired faster. Again, head on over to letseatgrandma.com/podcast. Thanks and I’ll see you next time.