With more applications and interviews being done online people, especially students, need to optimize their resume to adapt to this change. Turns out doing so is much easier than you might think. Here are some tips and tricks you can use for making your resume look great online!
- Make It Interactable
Add hyperlinks in your resume. Hyperlinks are the easiest way for potential employers to see what you have to offer. For example with Her Campus, you can add a “Published Work(s)” section to your resume. Under this section, you can spotlight your best articles, give a short description of them, and leave a link to them so the employers can read them for themselves. This also perfect for designers, musicians, and other creators to spotlight their work professionally. Hyperlinks also make it super easy for employers to contact you for potential interviews. Make sure your LinkedIn profile, phone number, and email address at the top of your resume are all be clickable and link to their correct locations, respectively.
- Save Old Copies of Your Resume
It is important to keep your resume up-to-date and to tailor it to best suit the position(s) that you are applying for. However, I recommend saving a copy of your resume before updating or modifying it. This is useful for keeping up with your past experiences and for applying to multiple jobs. Often similar jobs may require slightly different, specific skill sets. Saving a copy of your resume allows you to alter the singular, original copy of your resume to make multiple, specialized versions of it to fit those respective positions. Plus, you can look at these past resumes for reference when applying to jobs in the future.
Be sure to put a unique identifier in the file name of the document as well. I recommend using the following format to avoid confusion: your name, the name of the position or company you are specializing the resume for, and /or the year this resume was created or updated.
- Send Your Resume as a PDF, Not a Document
When sending your resume to a potential employer be sure to send it as a PDF file instead of a downloadable document. You want it to be as easy as possible for people to read your resume. Sending it as a word document would require them to download your resume onto their computer to read it. This just adds more steps for the employer to go through before they even see your resume. It also causes a lot of hassle for the employer by cluttering up their download files and taking up a lot of their time. Sending resumes in PDF form is not necessarily a requirement for applicants, but it is courteous to hiring managers.
Now that you have a better understanding of online etiquette it is time for you to get out there and really wow your potential employers. For more career advice be sure to check out the Her Campus Career Center page under the sections tab.
Happy job hunting. Good luck out there!