If as a job applicant, you want your resume to STAND OUT from the pile, then you must think beyond the standard roster of personal details, education, and work history. In today’s highly competitive labour market, merely listing skills and accomplishments won’t suffice.
There was a time when Artificial Intelligence (AI) would have easily performed the
trick and give your resume the touch of uniqueness. However, as AI tools become
more popular, every resume has undergone SIMILAR transformations, making it
even challenging to rely solely on technology to differentiate yourself.
In this post, I‘ll introduce THREE powerful elements you can add to your resume to make it truly distinctive and memorable to recruiters and hiring managers.
THREE THINGS TO ADD TO YOUR RESUME TO MAKE IT STAND OUT FROM OTHER RESUMES (with sample resume)
1. Branding Tagline / Branding Statement:
The branding statement is not something you find on every resume. In fact, throughout my extensive experience in reviewing resumes and recruiting, I have only come across remarkably few resumes that communicate a personal brand or feature a branding tagline.
Why?
This is because the branding tagline is not a traditional resume requirement, hence, a lot of resume writers overlook it, or probably don't know it exists.
But here's the thing: Having a well-crafted, professional brand on your resume highlights your unique value proposition as a job seeker. It gives the reader an immediate understanding of who you are and what you can accomplish.
To create a good branding statement, you may need to ask yourself questions like:
1. what am I good at?
2. What have I been recognized for?
3. What reputation do I hold with other professional colleagues?
4. What professional qualities do I have that makes me good at my job?
5. What are the professional achievements I am most proud of?
Your answers to these questions are statements of who you are as a professional. When you combine these answers or some of them into a string of words or a short phrase, they become your branding tagline.
The branding tagline should appear at the top of your resume, immediately after your personal details.
Based on your responses to the questions above, your branding tagline could say something like:
“Award-winning Sales Executive with Experience in Workers’ Compensation, Pain Management, Consistently Exceeding Sales Goals” for a Sales Executive
OR
“Providing Care with a Heart and a Smile” for a Caregiver
OR
“Empowering Businesses for Financial Excellence Through Strategic Tax Expertise” for a Tax Consultant
Whatever branding tagline you use, always keep in mind that its effectiveness is determined by your ability to prove and quantify the brand (through experience and accomplishments).
Lastly, if you are not sure of how to place the branding tagline on your CV, see screenshot of a sample resume after the next point.
2. Include Showcase Bullet Points in your Professional Summary
A showcase bullet point is a bullet point / statement that highlights a significant achievement or responsibility. Usually, it contains quantifiable achievements that grab the attention of recruiters/ hiring managers.
Including showcase bullet points in your professional summary not only gives your resume a different, unique layout; but also places your value proposition right in the faces of recruiters from the very beginning. It helps you quantify the brand you have communicated in your branding statement.
Here’re few examples of showcase bullet points:
"Boosted sales by 30% in six months by implementing a new customer engagement strategy"
"Led a team of 10 to complete a major project three weeks ahead of schedule, resulting in a cost savings of ₦5,000,000"
Related: How to craft compelling resume bullet points and make recruiters hire you
See below, screenshot of a sample resume highlighting points 1 and 2.
.png "Screenshot of a sample resume highlighting elements of the top page of a resume")
3. Include an anchor statement under each experience in your resume:
An anchor statement in this context, is a statement under your job title and the company you work(ed) for. It gives recruiters a sense of your history. It could be a statement that describes the company you worked for, or a statement that describes your role in that company.
For example, it could read something like:
“Manage 50+ concurrent civil litigation, tax collection, and employment law cases for full-service firm with 5 partners, 2 associates, and support team.”
OR
“Telecommunications company with about one billion naira in revenue and 2000 employees”
The idea behind including the anchor statement in your resume is to PUT YOU IN CONTEXT. The recruiter needs to know the size and scope of your responsibilities, because being an auditor in Deloitte is different from being an auditor at a startup audit firm.
At a startup, you may have to take on work beyond the scope of the role’s typical responsibilities – you may have to perform administrative duties and all, since the operations in startups are generally disconnected. However, at a larger firm, where there are more resources, your responsibilities might be narrower, giving you a better sense of how to do the work.
In the end, the recruiter/ hiring manager decides whether your experience is relevant or not. However, you want to provide as much information that helps locate you in the context of your professional journey in a short period of time as possible.
Read also: This popular resume advice is a waste of time, says expert
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