Writing a resume is a tedious, time-consuming job in any industry. Especially if you haven’t been searching for a job in the past few years and now you really need a fresh, updated resume that will speak to the recruiters and land you that interview. If you were a stay-at-home mom for a while, you need a great resume that can impress the recruiters.

Here Is How to Do This:

1. Write a Summary

Many managers, strategists and so on prefer to put a summary at the beginning of their resume. This element gives an overview of your achievements and results as well as your goals. It should be no longer than 5 sentences.

This is not an opportunity to talk about yourself but rather an opportunity to talk about how you helped your previous employer and how you would be able to help your current one. Use numbers and percentages to further elaborate and prove your point.

“We talk about getting a seat at the executive table. It never stops. The reality is that you don’t ask for permission” says Jon Hansen, Founder, Procurement Insights

2. Format and Layout

One of the biggest things people in any industry forget when it comes to resumes is that they need to layout and format the document.

When a resume has no visual appeal, the recruiter looking at it will quickly be distracted by other resumes that look good and have a good layout that’s easy to read and comprehend.

Stick with a simple, clean design and position your sections in a way that will not confuse the reader. “Your font should also be easy to read and it should match the overall style of the document. You may feel like this is not that important but if you want your skills to shine on paper, you should definitely learn to layout and format properly”, – explains Keith Ledbetter, a Recruiting Manager at Top Canadian Writers and Student writing services.

3. Use Quantifiable Data

Nothing beats good old numbers when it comes to convincing your recruiters or potential employers that you are the best person for the job. For instance, if you say that you led a team of ten people or that you had a portfolio spent around $2.6 billion and so on. This adds credibility to your story and it makes it come alive in the eyes of the recruiters. They will want to hire you for your skills, your knowledge and everything else that brought success to the other company.

You can use this in each section – from the summary to education, experience, and skills – it will certainly help. It’s okay if you don’t have this data – but make sure you use it when you do.

Sidney Johnson, SVP Global Supply Management, Delphi “Speed is everything in our business. Ability to react to problems or predict at speed. It is the differentiator”

4. Tools That Can Help

Writing a resume isn’t easy. Other than writing about your life and career, you also have to be mindful of grammar and spelling, sentence structure and style and so on. While some are familiar with the rules, some simply forget. But, fortunately, there are plenty of tools that can help with that.

• My Writing Way – Style is one of the main issues as this is one of the things that either can’t be taught or you’ll need a long time to learn. Luckily, you can simply use this writing guide and keep doing what you love.
• UK Top Writers and Academ Advisor – As previously stated, formatting is very important for readability but if this isn’t something you are familiar with, use these tools.
• StudyDemic – Grammar is pivotal in your resume. Bad grammar could make the recruiter discard you immediately so you should use this grammar tool.
• Boom essays – If you need some help with editing and proofreading, you should use this online checker to make sure that there are no errors in your resume.
• Writing Populist – This is a grammar checker that can help you fix all of your grammar mistakes.
• Let’s go and learn and Ukwritings – One of the important elements of any resume is powerful, action words that could help you get the job. Use these action words and title generators to help you out with that.

5. Use Career Summaries

This is another summary that you could benefit from. Simply write about your career in chronological order, highlighting the most important and the most relevant jobs. It would be good if you could also make it so it represents how your responsibilities grew with each job.

6. Play to Your Strengths

Putting your most important data first could land you a job. For instance, if you have graduated and only had one previous job, list your education section first and if you don’t have any formal education, let them know about your experience first. If you don’t have formal education or a previous job, you can stress your skills – and every stay-at-home mom has amazing skills in most important areas – and get some informal education to confirm your knowledge.

You can also try freelancing for a few months before you try to find a formal job because it’s a slow transition to working full time. Plus, it can get you some amazing things for your resume and your portfolio.

Stuart Hayward-Higham, Technical Development Director, Suez UK “You have to accept failure. For every 10 innovation projects, we expect 1 to work”

7. Avoid Cliche Skills

Cliche skills appear in almost every resume. You have probably seen them or used them – skills like responsible or team player and so on. These usually don’t paint a true picture of what you are and what you can do. Focus on real skills and your industry oriented skills.

As a stay-at-home mom, you probably have amazing organization skills, time-management skills and similar things that a company would value, especially in higher positions. Focus on these in your resume and stress how you know that you have those skills.

Nadia Malek, Senior Director Supply Chain, Cirque du Soleil “When selling into stakeholders, you need to speak their language if you want to change things”

Final Thoughts

While resumes are hard to write properly, with some help, you could write a perfect resume and land that job. It’s not easy to find a good job after being a stay at home mom for a few years, but it’s possible if you learn how to represent your skills and knowledge on your resume. Keep in mind that being a stay at home mom requires some amazing skills, so those represent something important for your resume as well. Follow these tips to achieve that.

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Nora Mork

Nora Mork is a career journalist at Revieweal and Australian help. She shares her thoughts by speaking at public events and writing articles for blogs, such as Academized.

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