Tailoring Your Resume: Why You Need To Do This

Templates are the absolute evil of the career world. There is nothing more bland, boring, and discouraging than a resume that has clearly been taken from a template and not customized at all for the job the applicant is applying for. Luckily for you, you have stumbled upon our blog and can get help to make sure that your resume's are actually being read by employers and taken seriously. Here are some tips about tailoring your resume.

1. Employers will notice
Having hired students before, both here at Career Services and for my own business a few years ago, It is very easy to see when the applicant has put forth a reasonable amount of effort to tailor their resume. Simple things like how recent their employment dates are, what their achievement statements are saying, what skills they are addressing... it all adds up. Take the time, they will notice!


2. Sticking to the template is both good and bad
Templates help you understand the basic structure and formatting of a resume. By no means are they a bad thing altogether, but rather if you stick to them 100% of the time. Feel free to add some of your own style to it, while keeping it professional (a great way to do this is by customizing your information on the top of the page, adding a border, either centering or left-centering your headings, etc).


3. Job qualifications: make sure you address them
One major disadvantage of using a general resume is that you do not always address all of the job qualifications that the employer is looking for. In other words, even if the employers are in the same industry (i.e., retail), they will be looking for different qualities and qualifications in their employees. If you tailor your resume to those qualifications, you will get more interviews guaranteed.


4. Don't forget about the cover letters...
This article is mainly about resumes', but let's not forget about the other half of the application. Cover letters are even more important to tailor, as if you forget to change the direction of the cover letter for each employer they may not look past it to your resume. A lot of the time, the employer will state directly on the job application what kind of employee they are looking for as well as their values and missions. Address these specifically in each cover letter! Taking the extra 10 minutes to do this will make a world of difference.


5. If you think you should be hired, show it!
The best part about tailoring your resume is that it gives you the best opportunity to show the employer that you are the best applicant. After all, the applicant who will spend the extra time to customize their resume and cover letter will likely spend the extra time to make sure they do the best job possible for the employer.
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If you think you need any help trying to customize your resume and cover letter, just remember these tips. If you need a little more guidance or would like someone to edit your documents, drop by the career resource centre at Brock University and we can help you portray your best you.

Anthony Mancuso
4th Year Honours Bachelor of Sport Management
Lead Career Assistant