Acuity HR Solutions Inc

• Flexible Work – Beyond Working Remotely by Brad Lutz 30 Jun
• Rachel's Work from Home Efficiency by Jaysa Toet 17 Jun
• Don't Worry About Bums in Seats! by Jane Helbrecht 22 Apr
• Making Time to Lead - Free Online Professional Development Session by Jane Helbrecht 09 Apr I’ve had the pleasure of working with wonderful job seekers through Career Transition this year as a result of COVID’s impacts on various industries I must commend them – everyone I have worked with is taking their next career steps with positivity and eagerness despite the circumstances One of the components we discuss with groups and individuals is their resume & cover letter There are a lot of “rules” when people think of resumes but as we all know, some rules are more like guidelines as opposed to actual rules

The two-page maximum is one of them (a guideline not a rule) however you want to think of your resume/cover letter as valuable real estate Every section of information and the way you lay it out is an opportunity to make a compelling case as to why the person reading should be interested in you These documents don’t get you the job/opportunity/award but they help get you to the next step

So, if you are trying to save a line or two or re-think space, here are three quick ways to change your resume / cover letter:

• References available upon request – I sure hope so, this goes without saying! If you don’t have a list of people who have experienced you positively in a work or volunteer capacity you have more work to do
• Delete this line and make sure you have a good supplemental page of a minimum of three work related references (your best friend’s mom doesn’t count)
• This could be previous leaders, people you worked with, clients or people who reported to you
• Dear Sir/Madam & To whom it may concern – If your intro statement is generic it gets passed by, and so could your application
• You want to show enthusiasm towards the company and opportunity so better options are including the hiring manager’s name or at minimum “Dear (Insert Company Name) Team,”
• Soft skills section – This is about as useless as the skill endorsements on LinkedIn
• Anyone could make a laundry list of all the things they think they’re good at but if you can’t substantiate that with where/when you demonstrated the skill (work, education or volunteer experience) it doesn’t tell the reader much
• Save those action words for inclusion in strong bullet points under your job titles and delete this section from your resume

Jaysa Toet is a Partner at Acuity HR Solutions For more content and blogs from the Acuity team visit our Spotlight page and follow us on LinkedIn!