Navigating the job market? As the professional world evolves, so do resume trends. It's more than just a list of past jobs and skills—it's a showcase of your professional story and a marketing tool that could land you your next role.
In this ever-changing landscape, knowing the current trends in resume writing can be the secret to standing out in a sea of candidates. Below, you’ll learn eight of the most important resume trends you should know as you revamp your resume and embark on your job search.
3 key takeaways
- Current resume trends to know in 2023
- Tips for crafting a standout resume that keeps up with these trends
- How Teal’s AI Resume Builder can streamline the process.
1. Tailoring your resume to each job application
In the contemporary job market, simply dusting off an old resume and sending it out to multiple employers doesn't cut it anymore. The era of a one-size-fits-all resume has quickly been replaced by a more dynamic approach—tailoring your resume for each new job application.
This process entails adjusting your resume's content to match the specific requirements and expectations outlined in a job posting. The rise of this trend is fueled by an increasingly competitive job market, where standing out from the crowd has never been more crucial.
Tailoring your resume to the job description offers numerous benefits, including:
- Increased relevancy: Tailoring ensures that you highlight the skill sets and experiences most pertinent to the role, enhancing your resume's relevancy.
- Better engagement: A customized resume resonates more with hiring managers, as it directly addresses the job description.
- Improved interview chances: By showcasing that you're an ideal fit for the role, you'll increase your chances of landing an interview.
- Demonstration of interest: Tailoring your resume shows that you've taken the time to understand the role and the company, illustrating your genuine interest.
How to accelerate the process of tailoring your resume
While the benefits of tailoring your resume are indisputable, it can be a time-consuming task. But here's where Teal streamlines the process.
Teal’s AI Resume Builder is designed to facilitate the resume tailoring process.
With this tool, you can optimize your resume to align with job postings, highlighting the right skills and experiences effortlessly. Teal streamlines this typically tedious task, saving you time while increasing your chances of catching the attention of hiring managers.
Why wait? Give Teal’s AI Resume Builder a shot and start experiencing a less strenuous, more fruitful job search process.
2. Including a professional summary
A professional summary has emerged as a must-have section to put on your resume.
Unlike the outdated resume objective, a professional summary is a concise introduction at the top of your resume that highlights your key skills, achievements, and relevant work experience.
This trend is gaining traction, as it provides hiring managers with a snapshot of your professional journey right at the outset, immediately drawing their attention to your most compelling qualifications.
While a resume objective focuses on your goals and aspirations, a professional summary emphasizes your proven capabilities and how they align with the needs of the potential employer.
The shift from objectives to summaries is due to their more employer-centric approach. Instead of stating what you want (as in an objective), a summary articulates what you bring to the table, making it a more effective tool in today's competitive job market.
How to write a top-notch professional summary
Crafting an engaging professional summary, or short professional bio, involves condensing your most notable professional highlights into a concise, powerful statement. Here's how to do it:
- Understand the job requirements: Study the job description to identify the most crucial skills and experiences the employer seeks.
- Highlight relevant skills and accomplishments: Select 3-4 key skills or accomplishments that are most relevant to the job and showcase these in your summary.
- Use quantifiable achievements: Whenever possible, include numerical values to make your accomplishments tangible and more impressive.
- Use a time-based statement: Saying something along the lines of, “in the last X years,” reinforces that your experience is recent and relevant to the current market.
- Keep it concise: A professional summary should be no more than 300-350 characters and can be in the form of sentences or bullet points. It's a teaser of your expertise, not an exhaustive list.
Remember, a well-crafted professional summary not only intrigues the hiring manager but also sets the tone for the rest of your resume. Make it count!
Use the AI functionality within Teal’s Resume Builder to generate multiple versions of your professional summary and tailor it to the job you are applying for.
3. Focusing on quantifiable accomplishments
Simply listing your responsibilities isn't enough to stand out anymore. What truly makes a resume shine is emphasizing quantifiable accomplishments.
These are specific instances of your successful work, ideally quantified with hard numbers, percentages, or time frames. This trend is on the rise because it provides concrete evidence of your skills and achievements, making your contributions more tangible and meaningful to potential employers.
By showcasing your proven ability to deliver results, you'll provide compelling evidence of your potential value to their organization.
Resume accomplishment examples
So, how do you craft effective, quantifiable accomplishments? Here’s a simple format: success verb + noun + metric + outcome. Here are a few examples:
- Increased sales revenue by 20% over a 12-month period by introducing a new marketing strategy.
- Reduced project delivery times by 15% through improved workflow processes, leading to higher client satisfaction rates.
- Managed a team of 10 developers to complete a complex software project two months ahead of schedule, enhancing the company’s reputation in the industry.
- Saved the company $50,000 annually by identifying and eliminating inefficiencies in the budget.
Each of these resume accomplishments examples is clear, measurable, and directly linked to a positive outcome, making your achievements both impressive and verifiable. Employers love seeing hard evidence of your skills and contributions—it's a resume trend that truly packs a punch!
To help you craft these impactful achievements, use the Achievement Assistant tool within Teal’s Resume Builder.
4. Articulating skills through work experience
Including a “Skills” section in your resume serves as a quick snapshot of your abilities for hiring managers, spotlighting your key hard and soft skills. However, while a standalone skills section is crucial, an emerging trend is to weave these skills directly into your work experience, too.
It's gaining traction because it shows the tangible application of your skills in real-world situations. Demonstrating how you've used both your hard and soft skills in past roles underlines your abilities and offers an authentic narrative of how you've contributed to your previous workplaces.
And while including skills in your work experience and achievements paints a comprehensive picture of you as a professional, it also enriches your appeal to potential employers by showing them not just what you know but how effectively you put that knowledge into action.
And let's not forget about both hard and soft skills. Hard skills are specific, teachable abilities, such as coding or financial analysis. Soft skills, on the other hand, are more subtle, often personality-related attributes, like teamwork, adaptability, and problem-solving.
Showcasing both types in the context of your work history helps paint a complete picture of your professional capabilities. This provides an edge in illustrating not only what you know but also how you work, making you a well-rounded candidate in the eyes of potential employers.
5. Incorporating relevant keywords throughout your resume
As hiring processes continue to digitalize, embedding relevant keywords in your resume is gaining momentum as an essential trend.
Why?
The key lies in the workings of Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS). An ATS is a tool employers use to help manage job openings and track applications.
In this age of digital recruitment, using keywords from the job description not only aligns your skills with the requirements but also increases your visibility if someone on the hiring team searches the ATS.
It’s important to note that real people are still reviewing your resume. However, a hiring manager or recruiter is more likely to recognize you as a suitable candidate if your resume reflects the language used in the job posting.
Tips for utilizing keywords in your resume
To use keywords effectively in your resume, follow these tips:
- Analyze the job description: Thoroughly read the job description and make a list of recurring words and phrases, such as specific skills, qualifications, and responsibilities.
- Use these keywords naturally: Scatter these words naturally throughout your professional summary, skills section, and work history. Don’t hide keywords in your resume, and avoid keyword stuffing—the language should flow naturally.
- Use variations: Use synonyms and variations of the keywords to cover all possible search terms. For example, if the job description mentions “project management,” you could also use terms like “project coordination” or “project execution.”
- Include industry-specific terminology: Every industry has its jargon. Use commonly recognized industry terms, acronyms, and abbreviations relevant to the role.
- Don't forget soft skills: Soft skills are increasingly important to employers. If the job description mentions traits like “team player” or “excellent communication,” make sure these feature in your resume.
6. Omitting your picture and other graphics
In the modern job market—especially within the U.S., it’s a fairly common preference for pictures and graphics to be left off resumes. This is essential for several reasons.
First, incorporating a photograph might inadvertently introduce biases during the recruitment process. To maintain a fair and equitable screening process, many companies prefer resumes without a photo to ensure the focus remains on your skills and professional experience, not your appearance.
Second, ATS often have difficulties processing graphics-heavy resumes. A clean, minimalistic resume format with standard fonts ensures that your resume is optimized for human and digital reviewers and that all your valuable information is captured correctly.
Finally, resumes with cluttered graphics can distract from the main content—your skills, experiences, and achievements. An effective resume strikes a balance between visual appeal and readability, using whitespace to make the document easy on the eyes.
Remember, content is king: In a sea of applicants, it's your qualifications and unique value proposition that should stand out—not the color of your resume or an irrelevant photo.
7. Avoiding resume buzzwords and cliches
In recent years, the trend has been moving away from using resume buzzwords and cliches. Examples include phrases like "team player," "hard worker," or "detail-oriented."
The downside of using such buzzwords is that they don't provide any tangible evidence of your skills or achievements. Furthermore, they might give the impression that you are merely filling space or, worse, lacking originality.
On the other hand, action verbs are favored in today's resume trends. Resume action verbs convey energy and clarity to your document, painting a vivid picture of your abilities and experiences. They illustrate your active role in achieving results, helping potential employers envision you in action.
Action verbs to use in your resume
Here are some powerful action verbs to consider for your resume:
- Orchestrated
- Spearheaded
- Streamlined
- Cultivated
- Amplified
- Optimized
- Pioneered
Remember, the ultimate goal is to tell a compelling story about your professional journey. Avoid falling into the trap of cliches, and let your unique accomplishments shine.
8. Nurturing your social media presence
Your online presence is, in many ways, an extension of your resume. As such, nurturing your social media presence has become a significant trend in job hunting.
Hiring managers are increasingly checking LinkedIn profiles, Twitter feeds, and even Instagram accounts as a part of their vetting process.
Why?
Because social media provides insights into your professional life, personality, and how you choose to present yourself to the world. This can either complement the information in your traditional resume—or give off a negative impression.
The importance of a well-curated social media presence cannot be overstated. It showcases not just your skills and experience but also your professional interests, network, and the way you communicate. In essence, it humanizes you beyond the bullet points on your resume.
LinkedIn, in particular, can highlight endorsements for your skills, recommendations from colleagues, and your thoughts on industry-related topics. This gives potential employers a more comprehensive picture of you as a professional.
So, if your social media presence isn't something you've thought much about, now is the time to start. Cultivate your profiles with the same attention to detail and professionalism you put into your resume. After all, they're two sides of the same personal branding coin.
Build a resume that employers will love with Teal
Staying current with resume trends—whether it's tailoring your resume, strategically using keywords, or polishing your social media presence—can dramatically boost your job search success.
But remember, it doesn't have to be a daunting task.
Teal's AI Resume Builder is designed to help you create a standout, personalized resume effortlessly.
With Teal, you can even get real-time feedback and expert tips with the built-in resume checker. Simply follow its step-by-step guidance to instantly boost your resume quality!
Ready to make your job search more efficient and less stressful? Sign up for Teal today and take the first step toward your dream job.
