How to Write Job Description on Your Resume
When you think about job descriptions, you presumably consider job advertisements posted by employers. But, the main job descriptions may be the ones you create yourself when you’re describing or depicting past positions on your resume.
Job descriptions show potential employers what you have achieved in the positions you’ve held. They provide an abstract of your work experience and skills also. Well-written descriptions for each position you have held will help get your resume seen and selected for interviews.
A well-written job description for your resume can give recruiters and hiring managers significant indications in regards to the kind of employee you are and the potential value you can bring to their organization. Regardless of your qualifications, showing that you have a history filled with utilizing your skills and knowledge for different organizations should expand your chances of being considered for the position. Your past accomplishments can be adequately described by following some of the basic guidelines in this article. But before then, let us look at a resume job description.
What is a resume job description?
A resume job description segment is the piece of your resume where you list your past positions, projects, humanitarian or volunteer work, and other pertinent professional experiences. The objective of the work history section on your resume is to show the recruiter that you have what it takes and the experience to perform your work obligations effectively. This implies zeroing in on your achievements or accomplishments, such as the official job description of the roles you held or details about the organization.
By identifying your past accomplishments and listing them out, you can give your prospective employers confidence that you have the essential skills to carry out your tasks effectively.
How to Write Job Descriptions on Your Resume
What’s the most ideal approach to composing an eye-catching job description? Before you add job descriptions to your resume, you have to make a list of achievements for each one of your positions both present and past. This will prepare you for composing your resume.
Consider these guidelines when adding a past work experience segment to your resume:
Add a job description to the first page of your resume
Many recruiters see the prospective employee’s description of past work experiences as an indication that they have the vital skills to succeed. Hence, this segment ought to be easily accessible, as it is the first place recruiters look in a resume. Consider adding this segment before others like “education” or “skills” to ensure the person perusing your resume sees precisely why you are qualified.
Focus on skills and achievements
After you have composed a job description, look for ways to make it concise by doing these things:
- Creating an effective impact statement.
- Highlighting skills and accomplishments and providing sufficient detail to support your premises.
- Try to remove pronouns and articles.
- Begin sentences with action words.
- Choose strong words like “initiated” and “supervised” to show that you’ve made an impact on your team.
Incorporate keywords
If you will submit your resumes to organizations that add them into applicant tracking systems (ATS), try to incorporate as many industries and job-specific keywords as possible. When searching their database for prospective candidates, hiring managers look for resumes with a large number of “hits” on keywords. Keywords are mostly nouns, e.g., “customer service” or “data entry”. To utilize keywords more effectively, be specific, use a lot of them, and sprinkle them all through your resume.
Prioritize job description information
Next, consider prioritizing the information you give in every description. Present details that are of great interest to prospective employers first. For instance, consider the candidate seeking a job as a shop attendant. The resume may reflect a retail experience in which 75% of the candidate’s time was spent on the sales floor, and 25% was spent taking inventory of stocks and cleaning the shop. Priority, determined by relevance to the employer, dictates keeping records and taking inventory of stocks that should be listed before sales.
Include a suitable amount of relevant experiences
The number of past work experiences listed on your resume should depend on where you are on your career path. Follow these rules to determine how much work experience you should add to your resume, based on your history:
For candidates with no work experience, make sure you add descriptions of any significant experience, like an unpaid internship, part-time projects, volunteer works, and positions held in student organizations. Add up to four or five positions to keep it relevant and concise.
For entry-level candidates: This set of people is one to five years into their employment history. List all past paid work, especially for significant roles, and add up to four or five parts to keep it brief. Consider adding volunteer or internship positions if paid work experience is fewer than four jobs. Please note that you have held two or three positions in one organization.
For junior and mid-level candidates: These people are five to 10 years into their career history, depending on their industry. Add a description of relevant roles, temporary jobs, internships, and freelancing work. Incorporate four or five jobs.
For senior candidates: These experts for the most part have 10 to 15 years of relevant work experience that is pertinent to the job for which they are applying. Incorporate all significant professional jobs, particularly those that show a clear advancement in your career.
Start every description with essential information about the job and the organization
Each previous work experience you describe ought to contain the official job title, the name, and address of the organization, and the period in which you worked there. Experiences should be recorded in reverse chronological order, with the most recent experience being the first on the list to show where you are in your career today.
To be comprehensive, each listed position has to contain this information:
- Job title
- Company name
- City and state—or country, if global
- The employment period
- Description of the organization and your position
- Your main accomplishments and achievements
Emphasize achievements or accomplishments over work responsibilities
While discussing past work experiences, you should describe your achievements while outlining your work duties. This will exhibit your job and the value you brought to the organization, providing proof that you can be a resource/ asset to an organization.
It’s important for employers to know you have the vital experience to do the work required in the position and for you to stand out from other competitors, emphasize how you added value with numbers. Employers need to know what you have accomplished. Make it simple for them to see what you’ve done by making use of numbers and percentages.
Use an action-benefit statement to describe your accomplishments
An effective way of describing your past accomplishments is by utilizing action-benefit statements. This involves describing an action you took when confronted with a challenge and the positive outcome, for example, sales increase, cost reduction, faster product delivery, or another action of significant value.
A good strategy to take in regards to an action-benefit statement is, to begin with, the outcome. By putting the sentence in such a way that puts the result first and the steps you took to get there afterward, the recruiter will be bound to recall the outcome.
Measure your accomplishments
Be specific while illustrating your achievements and incorporate as many quantifiable/ measurable results like numbers and statistics as much as possible. This method allows you to show that you are unbiased in your self-assessment and you have the figures to back up your assertions/ statements.
Measure as much information as possible (numbers, naira signs, percentages can help you to make a case). A bullet point that reads “grew sales 35% yearly” is more impressive and informative than one that reads just “grew sales” as nearly any description, for any job can be enhanced using numbers. Employers like numbers. It’s a lot easier to look at signs and symbols than it is to read words.
Be straightforward and honest
Experienced recruiters can tell whether a previous work experience description is composed truthfully. Being straightforward and open about your past positions, while doing your best to emphasize accomplishments is the best strategy to increase your chances of being selected for an interview.
Tailor your content to the position
While describing your past work experience, it’s ideal to select the most relevant jobs and describe your achievements based on the job description for which you’re applying presently. Figuring out what is relevant and what isn’t relies greatly on what the prospective hiring managers are looking for. Use the duties listed in the job posting to know what their needs are and what they are expecting from a future employee in this position. A well-written job description segment that is tailored for the role you are applying for has the potential of setting you apart from different candidates with similar qualifications.
Be selective about what you include
Your resume isn’t your entire work history, and you don’t have to incorporate each duty for each job. Decide on the most relevant information by placing yourself in your prospective boss’ position: Will this information help persuade or convince the employer that you are a valuable candidate to interview?
You don’t need to incorporate each duty you at any point had. Gather together similar duties. For example, as opposed to listing “answered phone calls” and “responded to emails from customers” in two bullet points, you can combine them and say, “resolved client issues through telephone, email, and chat conversation.”
Make it easy to read
The two major ways of displaying your work responsibilities and accomplishments are either through bullet points or by using a narrative style. The former can minimize or limit the significance of your achievements, and the latter can be difficult to read, so the best strategy is a blend of the two. A short paragraph in which you describe your duties, trailed by a couple of bullet points laying out your accomplishments, is always an effective approach.
Make your jobs sound better
There are simple ways to jazz up job descriptions on your resume to make your roles sound impressive. A couple of changes to a great extent can improve your resume a lot. So make use of action words and captivating statements throughout your resume.