13 Strategies for Crafting Standout Resumes and Cover Letters
Crafting a resume and cover letter that capture the attention of potential employers is an art that requires insight and strategy. Drawing from the expertise of a Certified Resume Writer and a Founder and Principal, this article provides valuable perspectives to elevate your job application game. The first tip emphasizes tailoring your resume to the job description, while the final insight highlights leveraging LinkedIn for an expanded story. With a total of thirteen expert insights, readers will discover actionable strategies for standing out in a competitive job market.
- Tailor Resume to Job Description
- Use Career Coaches for Industry Insights
- Solve Problems Highlighted in Job Description
- Tell Your Professional Story with Impact
- Uncover Unique Value-Add
- Highlight Achievements, Not Duties
- Use Job Description as Blueprint
- Collaborate for Metric-Driven Resumes
- Tell a Story of Impact
- Research Yourself and the Company
- Modernize Cover Letters for Digital Age
- Weave Achievements into a Narrative
- Leverage LinkedIn for Expanded Story
Tailor Resume to Job Description
One highly effective strategy is to tailor the resume and cover letter to the target job description by emphasizing quantifiable achievements. Employers are drawn to candidates who demonstrate a clear impact in their previous roles.
Here's what we do in general:
We analyze the Job Description: Highlighting the keywords, required skills, and key responsibilities.
Show Results, Not Just Responsibilities: Instead of listing tasks, we focus on outcomes. For example, instead of saying, "Managed a team," we say, "Led a team of 10 to increase project efficiency by 25% within a six-month period."
Follow the Employer's Language: We analyze and align with the tone and terminology with the company's culture as reflected in the job posting.
Example:
Before: "Prepared marketing campaigns for product launches."
After: "Developed and executed marketing campaigns that boosted product launch sales by 30%, exceeding revenue targets by 15% in Q2."
By using this strategy, candidates can clearly show their value and make it easy for hiring managers to see why they're the perfect fit.
Use Career Coaches for Industry Insights
As the founder and principal of a recruiting firm specializing in civil engineering roles, I have a career coach on speed dial for candidates unable to accurately convey their value on paper. Crafting a successful resume and cover letter is a skill unto itself, and putting applicants in touch with coaches who've worked in our specific industry is key.
Together, this coach and I have developed a two-prong strategy.
First, we mimic. In the age of AI, it's important that resumes and cover letters mimic the language used in job postings. This vernacular is ever-changing, so it's very important that coaches stay on top of corporate lingo. Helping clients rework their application with words and phrases that automation will pick up is crucial because most first-round reviews are done by computer.
Secondly, we surprise. I work with the coach and the applicant to highlight one unexpected skill, experience, or educational accomplishment. Sometimes, making everything sound exceptional has the effect of dulling the resume overall. Choosing one unique attribute and focusing on it draws attention and jolts the reviewer out of their rote work. This is highly valuable in the second- and third-stage rounds of resume evaluation when HR becomes involved in a hands-on way.
Solve Problems Highlighted in Job Description
When working with clients we always start with the Job Description and look at it as a list of problems. We then identify the relevant keywords (aka problems) and tailor the resume to show how we have solved similar problems in the past.
Having a Key Achievements Section after your tailored introduction allows you to bring up the best examples of similar problems you've solved in the past relevant to the role you are applying for. Use those keywords from the job description as headers as you demonstrate your relevant achievements from your career.
Benefits of this include
- allows the hiring manager/recruiter to quickly see how you can help with their problems without having to read between the lines.
- Shows the best of you for the role regardless of when you solved similar challenges.
- Allows you to lead the narrative where you want it to go upfront which is useful especially if your last role was not as relevant or you have a career gap on your resume.
Remember, hiring managers don't care about you. They care about what you can do for them.
This customer-first approach allows us to understand what hiring managers want and then tailor our relevant story accordingly.
When we learn to tailor our message specifically for them, they feel seen, heard, and understood which can only increase your chances of getting through to the next round.
Tell Your Professional Story with Impact
Crafting a compelling resume and cover letter is like creating a captivating story. It's about showcasing your unique experiences and skills in a way that resonates with the reader. We help clients tell their professional story with impact. This involves understanding their career goals, identifying their key strengths, and presenting them in a clear and concise manner. We also help them tailor their resume and cover letter to specific job descriptions, highlighting the most relevant qualifications.
One particularly effective strategy is to focus on achievements rather than just listing responsibilities. Instead of simply saying "managed a team," we encourage clients to quantify their accomplishments. For example, they could say "managed a team of 10, resulting in a 15% increase in productivity." This adds weight to their claims and demonstrates the value they bring to a role. It's all about painting a vivid picture of their capabilities and making them truly stand out from the crowd.
Uncover Unique Value-Add
As a Career Coach, I meet with clients 1:1 to understand their career history, strengths, and goals. I ask them to walk me through their experience WITHOUT referencing their resume. This is very eye-opening because it results in sharing information that is NOT incorporated on their resume, which typically is their unique value-add. When I craft resumes, I take a very personalized approach and avoid overused jargon such as "proven track record" and "results-oriented" - this will definitely not make a candidate stand out. I often ask job seekers what their "secret sauce" is, which also helps with content development.
Highlight Achievements, Not Duties
When I work with clients on their resumes I focus on one key strategy: achievements over duties. Many of my clients, from executives to entry-level candidates, tend to list their job responsibilities rather than their accomplishments. Let's face it, to stand out to recruiters they need to know not just what you did, but why it mattered. By highlighting your achievements, you're not just bragging; you're showcasing your value. It's about telling a story about your career, a story that's backed up by concrete evidence. Here's how you can do it:
1. Quantify Your Success
2. Use Action Verbs
3. Be Specific
4. Tailor to the Job
5. Avoid Exaggeration
Use Job Description as Blueprint
Use the job description as your blueprint. Identify keywords, required skills, and qualifications mentioned in the job posting. Incorporate these into your résumé and cover letter naturally. For instance, if the job emphasizes "strategic sales planning" and "client relationship management," highlight your experience with those exact terms.
In your cover letter, go a step further: Begin with a strong opening that shows enthusiasm and addresses the employer's needs. Share a specific accomplishment or story that demonstrates how your skills directly align with the role. Conclude with a confident statement about how you can contribute and a call to action, like a request for an interview.
Collaborate for Metric-Driven Resumes
To ensure that clients develop compelling resumes, my process is highly collaborative. I conduct multiple Zoom meetings with each client to foster a hands-on learning environment. Drawing on my background as a K-12 teacher, I guide clients to empower them with the essential skills for metric-driven resume writing. Clients learn to use a data-driven approach to select the most impactful keywords, leading to their own "AHA" moments of insight. For document collaboration, we use a Google Docs "working document" and Google Sheets for thorough color-coded keyword analysis using a multi-prong approach. Clients also learn to articulate their achievements quantitatively in every resume bullet point-using dollars, numbers, or percentages-to effectively demonstrate how they have helped a previous employer. Additionally, they are equipped to customize each resume and cover letter from a solid base resume and robust template, ensuring every application is tailored and impactful. Collaboration is key!
Tell a Story of Impact
From my experience, the best résumés don't just list jobs—they tell a story. Instead of focusing on tasks, I help clients highlight moments where they made a real impact, whether by solving a problem or driving change. This approach shows employers not just what you've done, but how you think and work.
Research Yourself and the Company
Compelling resumes and cover letters that stand out to employers both require one thing - research. The research has to begin with yourself. Who are you at this point in your career? What do you want to do more and less of in your next role? How do you want to work? What do you value in your work and the people you work with? This information is used to frame and create the appropriate marketing message that "sells you" into your future role. Research also has to be done on the company and job description. This information enables you to position yourself as a solution to their unique problems. It provides the nuances necessary to tweak your resume to fit their needs.
Modernize Cover Letters for Digital Age
Cover letters as a term are an anachronism dating back to the time when people sent paper résumés by US mail and covered them with a letter expressing interest in the role and encouraging (or begging) a firm to interview them.
Now cover letters come in two flavors--the body of an email and as page 1 of a résumé if uploaded. In both cases, the letter should start out with a typical introductory paragraph--"I'm forwarding my résumé to you for the (whatever the position is) I saw advertised/so and so mentioned to me/or however you heard of the role. This is how my experience matches up with the role:"
Then, flush left, list all the requirements and functionality of the job, and flush right, state how long and how recently you've done that item. Skip anything you haven't done.
If you are sending this in the body of an email, it is an appetizer that encourages someone to read your résumé. If you are doing this as page 1 of your résumé and uploading it to an applicant tracking system, you are putting all the relevant keywords of the job onto page 1 which the system will like and then they will see the term repeated in the actual résumé.
This lets the system know that it is current (because it was on page 1) and work that you have proficiency in because it is repeated.
Weave Achievements into a Narrative
The key to crafting compelling resumes and cover letters is not just listing achievements but weaving them into a narrative that connects with hiring managers. When we highlight not just what a client has done but how and why it mattered, we create an application that demands attention.
Leverage LinkedIn for Expanded Story
Resumes and cover letters are formulaic and limited in length, by design. Boring, OK, I said it.
It's always a smart idea to mention your LinkedIn profile multiple times in the resume and cover letter to invoke the reader's curiosity to learn more about you, beyond merely linking your LinkedIn profile URL, but calling attention to more information on your profile to expand and tell a story. There they can appreciate an example or lesson learned of "why you do what you do" instead of factoid-y "what you did." You'll stand out from the competition vying for the same position.
LinkedIn profiles, when fully expanded, including each section that LinkedIn makes available, can go on for multiple pages, each section should be designed to add to the patina of your experience. Including color and motion in graphics, video, plus recommendations, honors, and awards, as well as volunteer work all reinforce your personal career story and tell so much more than a resume and cover letter allow, making your candidacy far more expansive and attractive, in my word, "amazing-er."
