A profession in the business domain might include your daily indulgence in advancing business and making key business decisions, and you’re probably great at it too. But if you fail to replicate your business savviness in a resume, your next few job applications will be a big hit and miss.
With most recruiters spending an average of just 6 seconds to scrutinize your resume, you need to make your resume stand out. You need to make it count.
Getting a job in the business world today demands that you’re as good a resume tactician as you are a man of businessman. You need to be proficient in both. Your business resume should be an embodiment of your business-savinness and proficiency in driving results.
These 5 tips are a great place to start. Let’s begin.
1. Provide an accurate Profile Title
Simply put, profile titles represent your latest job title. As such, it communicates your functional industry and seniority level in one go.
For example, a Business Development Executive will be less experienced and perhaps less skilled than a Business Development Manager. The former is also more likely to have less industry knowledge and expertise than the latter as it is a more junior position.
What this also means is that a Business Development Manager is in a better position to demand a better pay while making a career transition as he/she is eligible for a more senior position than a Business Development Executive.
You may be unaware of this, but most professionals tend to exaggerate or incorrectly represent their profile titles in their resume.
You should not engage in this malpractice as it will jeopardize your job application. Why? Because it will pass off as a deliberate attempt by you to lie to the recruiters to leverage a better pay.
Even if somehow you land the job by exaggerating your profile title, you may fail to shoulder the responsibilities that will come along with the job profile and in the worst-case scenario, you will fail to justify your profile title due to lack of documentation.
You are wasting your time if you lie about yourself in your business resume so make sure that your profile title is accurately presented in your resume.
If you’re a Business Development Executive, simply write the same in your resume.
2. Curate an impactful Professional Experience section
The art of perfecting the professional experience section can be considered equal to the art of converting a job.
If you want to convert a job, then this is the section you should focus on.
Make sure that this section is both reader-friendly and effective in communicating information. The twin combination of great readability and effectiveness will ensure that you convert a job offer faster than any business deal you have ever converted.
Stick to one-liners to state your professional experience by using bullet points and strictly avoid writing lengthy paragraphs as it makes your resume look bulky and may fail to intrigue the recruiters.
Create different headings and list down all the similar points under the relevant buckets to organize your one-liners and make it easier for the recruiters to read and comprehend your points.
Example:
Strategy Development & Operational Management
- Planned both short-term and long-term strategies to avoid any delay in the production
- Maintained the production schedules to assure a sufficient supply of products to 100+ factories
3. List your core skills in the Key Skills Section
If you are a business development professional, you are expected to be lingual in business development, converting clients, and generating sales as these are the staples of your profession.
If your resume fails to endorse these skill sets and make a show of it, then despite your exceptional proficiency in this profession, you are bound to fail.
A recruiter should be able to see signs of your expertise in your resume at the first glance. To enable this, identify your core skills and distinguish them under a distinct ‘key skills’ section in your resume.
You can also optimize this section by organically incorporating keywords.
Since most recruiters use the ATS (Applicant Tracking System) to filter resumes and hand-pick the most suitable ones that have keywords in them, it’s probably wise to identify the keywords that matches your skill sets and replicate them in your resume.
Here’s an example of what a perfectly-curated skills on resume should look like:
4. Draft a summary that best represents your business-savviness
A summary is one of the most powerful places to communicate your suitability for the business job you are targeting. How you document your summary on resume will play a major role in confirming your shortlist chances. It needs to be on-point and expressive.
It needs to communicate your key competence areas in a short 3-5 line paragraph touching on all the important points showcasing why you’re most eligible for the given job.
So your job before you get the job is to perfect this section. Doing this will ensure that your dream job becomes your ocean of grace.
5. Customize your resume according to your target business job
While posting a job, recruiters are trying to find suitable professionals who will be able to do justice to the role that they are hiring for. They need professionals who will be a great fit for the organization.
This is why your resume should be taylor-made to suit the jobs that you are targeting.
Your resume should not be a shabby document that mindlessly mimics all the information of your career. Instead, it should be a direct and effective presentation of the things that makes you fit for the organizations you are targeting.
Your resume should be able to provide answers to the questions that the job vacancy is asking. It should be able to fill the gaps that it is trying to fill. It should be able to illustrate that the job will fit you like a glove and that no one but you would be able to do justice to it.
Thus, it is vital that you customize each resume according to each job that you’re targeting.
Conclusion
Make sure to apply the 5 tips provided in this article to write your Business Resume.
Here are some takeaways that you need to keep in mind while writing your resume:
- Frame your profile title accurately.
- Perfect the way you present your work experience details.
- Highlight your business-centric core skills under the key skills section.
- Draft an impactful summary that gives an effective overview of your career trajectory.
- Customize your resume according to the job you are targeting to meaningfully advocate your suitability for the job.
Author’s Bio:
Aditya Sharma
A thriving entrepreneur and career-building enthusiast, Aditya lives and breathes Hiration — an AI-powered online resume builder and platform to help job-seekers find their way in today’s highly treacherous job market.