Your first job is always the most crucial part of your career. The “professional experience” field helps the recruiter better understand your background. Work experience is a field that appears on most resumes as it gives an idea of how long someone has been working and should have a short statement or paragraph describing their responsibilities, accomplishments, and results in each role. Get professional help from Resume Builderr.
What is professional experience?
Work experience is a description of the positions held by a candidate, including information about the name of the companies, the positions, and the periods worked that must appear in the resume, in addition to serving as a demonstration of their professional capabilities and personal qualities.
Three ways to value your professional experience
Writing a resume can be daunting, especially if you still need to gain the best (or most) professional experience to report on. It is possible that your last job does not demonstrate all the potential that you have and, in addition, it is far from what you seek for your career.
Do not worry. There are many ways to make your work history and qualifications interesting for recruiters to see that you are the person they are looking for.
-
Use active Voice
One secret to making your accomplishments more attractive on your resume is to use the active Voice instead of the passive Voice.
For example:
Active Voice: I created a social media campaign.
Passive Voice: A social media campaign was created by me.
Did you notice the difference? In active Voice, you place your accomplishments at the center of the sentence, highlighting your contribution. In addition, reading is faster and more direct, which values the 30 seconds that the recruiter will have, on average, to read the document.
It’s worth revising your resume and replacing any passive voice out there. The “action” verbs can vary between develop, organize, evaluate, coordinate, allocate and execute, for example.
-
Use keywords
Distribute (appropriately, of course) throughout your resume the keywords that make up the description of the vacancy you want to conquer.
This strategy makes your resume discoverable by search engines that screen candidates for the first time. In addition, it demonstrates to the recruiter that you are ideal for the position he needs to fill.
To do this, follow these steps:
- Carefully read the vacancy announcement and check which skills/characteristics are required in the text you have;
- Use the terms exactly as the company used them. For example, if your ad calls for “management experience,” don’t change the word. Remember that the “robot” may not understand the similarity between the two terms.
- Be careful to include keywords properly throughout the resume. The text needs to make sense because human beings will also read it.
-
Cut irrelevant information
If you adjust the resume to the vacancy, it will be more concise, direct, and objective. The recruiter will quickly realize how well-suited you are for the position.
The tip, then, is after including the keywords in your resume, delete skills and knowledge that are not related to the position you want to occupy.
This doesn’t mean you should delete non-relevant experiences from your history. Don’t do this – or your resume will be full of gaps. Just reduce the level of detail to what needs to be more relevant at the moment.
Should I put my first job on my resume?
As mentioned above, your first job is crucial for your career development. However, you should only include it in your resume if it is related to your field. For example, if your first job was as a babysitter, you can only use it on your resume if you plan to pursue it further professionally.
