How to Make An Impressive Resume for FREE (in 2024)

hey folks and welcome back to my channel my name is Aon mcgoff I'm a filmmaker and career educator living in New York and today we're going to remake your [Music] resume oh wait are you the person looking to supercharge your resume and get it to the top of any pile to get an interview with any company you want I'm Aon it's nice to meet you who am I um well my name is Aaron and I've helped literally millions of people redo their resumes and snag their dream jobs and today I'm ready to spill all my secrets with you today we are going to be redoing a resume using Google docs for exactly 0 this is all free so if you are enjoying this video so far hit that subscribe button and join the community let's get something clear here okay redesigning your resume isn't like the most fun thing like I think it's fun but like I get it if you don't if this isn't like like a fun Pastime for you but I'm proud of you for taking the time out of your day to do this because you could be doing something way more fun right now but you're not you're hanging out with me so thanks so here's the thing I've designed a system that allows you to make the highest quality resume in the shortest amount of time you're busy okay you don't have time to spend hours and hours and hours and days and months and years and light years redoing your resume so I'm not going to waste any more time blabbering along let's get into it first of all let's get clear what a resume is not a resume is not a list of everything you've ever done in your life get out of here with those three to four page resumes I once saw a six page resume and the last page was just blank do we get our rums back or do you keep them because I only have the one and I have a chili recipe on the back that I really want to keep the amount of resumes I've seen with no names on them no one is looking at your long resume okay we got to keep it concise one page is preferred two pages in special circumstances and if you're going to make a two-page resume you better be sure that nothing important is on that second page because they will most likely not look at it number two a resume is not an opportunity to showcase your personality or design skills the average recruiter spends about 7 Seconds just skimming your resume so the purpose of a resume is to convey the most amount of relevant information in the shortest amount of time and then people inevitably say well Aaron I'm working in a creative field shouldn't I showcase my creativity through my resume no you shouldn't that's what your portfolio is for every professional graphic designer I know has the most simplistic minimal rume I've ever seen because they are professionals and they know that the function of a rume is to convey a lot of information in a short amount of time so any distractions from that that hurt the function of the resume what did daer ROMs the the famous designer say good design is as little design as possible that is the mentality we are going to have now I would be remissed if I didn't talk about the infamous ATS ATS stands for applicant tracking system ATS is an umbrella name for a lot of different softwares that companies use to sift through and organize applicants so when a company puts up a jobl lising on indeed and they get 10,000 applicants the ATS that they pay for the software that they they pay for will go through and either organize or assign value or weed out or whatever different applicants that it thinks are relevant or irrelevant now the problem is that a lot of ATS systems are kind of dumb now if you are filling out online applications there is a very very good chance that your resume is going to get sucked into an ATS vacuum and you need to make sure that it is what we call ATS friendly that means if you submit your resumes to jpeg it's not going to like that it's going to be like I can't read jpeg you're you're rejected even if you were a canidate it's going to be like I don't I don't like this I can't read this so you need to make sure that it's ATS friendly because these ATS systems are notoriously a little dumb so how do we do that we keep our resume simple we keep the formatting simple we make them nice and boring no funky Graphics no funky fonts no funky formatting no funky pictures you just got a kiss keep it simple silly step one the brain dump so before we actually go into making our resume we're going to do one thing really quick that's going to save you so much time and it's going to help you make much stronger and more effective resumes I call it the brain dump we are going to open a blank document and write down everything we've ever done professionally this is a living document so it's something that you are going to keep updating for the rest of your life so you want to keep it somewhere safe I suggest just opening up a Google Dock and just having it in the cloud it doesn't need to be pretty it doesn't need to be formatted any type of way it's just for you so start with your education where did you go to high school college what were you involved in were you in any clubs or associations what were some of your relevant courses your GPA What towns were they in did you get any certifications or any registrations did you take any online courses anytime you have learned anything add it to this section then you're going to go into professional experience name every single company you've ever worked for from babysitting and cutting lawns in high school to internships and apprenticeships temp work contract work all the way up to part-time and full-time work and then if you can write 5 to 10 bullet points for each section and a pro tip for writing bullet points cuz it is just so hard and I'm always trying to find ways to make it easier for yall go to the job description for a job that's similar that's hiring right now so for example if I worked as a video editor for an advertising agency I would go to like indor Zip recruiter or LinkedIn and look for a company that's currently hiring that and look at the bullet points for for what they're looking for in that role and that's a good place to kind of gain inspiration for what to write as your bullet points if that makes any sense and then you can always use you know chat EBT you can always look at other resume examples there's another AI system called piie a that I also really love and lastly you want to add in all the extras so all the skills you know literally list every single software you know even like Outlook Gmail Mac iOS Microsoft collaboration teamwork emotional intelligence you want to add in your volunteer work any charity nonprofit you've ever volunteered with places you've traveled languages you speak is huge relevant Hobbies your hard and your soft skills so hard skills are technical skills like things that you had to be taught how to do and soft skills are things that more have to do with your personality and your character and who you are as a professional so for example a hard skill is like Excel proficient at Microsoft Excel but a soft skill is like leadership collaborative teamwork this is your opportunity to lay everything out on the table it's going to feel great step two is your resumé template okay now we can open up a nice blank resumé template and just start from scratch now in case you didn't know this you need to tailor your resume for every single job that you apply to I know you're thinking Aaron I don't have time to make a brand new resume for every single job that's ridiculous I have two things to say to that Mr Sir Madam number one you're not making a brand new resume from scratch all I'm asking you to do is tailor it for that role that can mean just swapping out a few words and we'll get into that soon second tailing your resume is not a waste of time it is going to save you so much time down the road because it's going to help you get a job quicker applying to random jobs you find online with the same generic resume is a fantastic way to not get an interview ask any recruiter they hate getting a generic resume that they obviously can tell was not tailored for the role and immedate throwaway okay okay this is an illustration I like to use to help just like drill this in so imagine it's a hot summer day and all you want is a crisp cold fresh Coca-Cola like one of those like Mexican coca-colas you know like the really really good ones and so two waiters come up to you one has a silver platter with a white handkerchief and just one crisp cold Coca-Cola Mexican cooca Cola in a glass here you go the other waiter comes up to you and he also has a silver platter with a nice white cloth but on that platter he has a couple Sprites and some orange juice I think those are a few Pepsis is there a Fanta on there oh and then in the back I think he has a there's a Coca-Cola in a glass but I can't can't really tell yep that's a Coca-Cola which platter are you going to reach for the one showing you exactly what you want that's what tailoring your resume is doing when you add other details that aren't relevant that's not what they're looking for it's just a distraction it's wasting their time you need to show these recruiters who are usually just scanning RS and just skimming looking for keywords you just need to show them exactly what they're looking for very clearly for your convenience I've broken it down into three parts professional resume athletic and special skills resume and Dwight tro trivia not tailoring a resume is a waste of your own time and it's working hard and not working smart I digress and SC to get off my high horse here get down from my Soap Box anyway so it's time to pick out your resume 10 if you're in a more conservative industry you know like Finance or law you might want to go with the more like conservative template but if you're in another industry like creative or Tech you can usually get away with a More Design forward template but honestly as long as it's simple and legible and prioritizes readability over everything you can't go wrong and of course I'm going to link to some of my favorite resumé templates down in the description so go check them out down there on to part three which is sections okay so resumés are pretty subjective for the most part but there are five sections that you should have on every single resume no no matter what they are expecting to see these sections number one is your name number two is your contact information number three is your relevant past experience number four is your education and number five are your skills you can also add additional sections if you want like Awards volunteer experience languages is a big one they're not necessarily required like the other sections but they're great to have and there's one additional section on your resume that I highly highly recommend that you have studies show that if you have this one section on your resume and you do it right it will supercharge your chances of getting the interview and the job what is this section a professional summary I am a huge fan of professional summaries I mean the research doesn't lie recruiters love a well-written professional summary also they are a great life hack because if you don't have the time to go through and tailor your entire resume you can just tailor your little summary at the top and they will love it I love it they are so incredibly powerful especially in this age of social media where we are so used to seeing people just still down their entire beings into this little bio you know if it's on Instagram they have a little bio if it's on hinge you know they just just we're so used to seeing people just like summarize themselves so a professional summary is a fantastic way to just say right to the recruiter or the department head or the hiring manager I am who you are looking for now if you want to know how to write the most incredible professional summary I have a template for you no matter who you are just starting out switching careers or you've been doing it for decades go watch this video because I have a template for you that walks you through exactly how to do it I get messages all the time from people saying Aaron I did it I integrated the summary and I'm getting all these interviews now I can't keep up and I'm just telling you you got to trust me you got to listen eron you got you you got to listen to me I know what I'm talking about go watch this video save it for later or do what you got to do and just know if you write a professional summary on your resume I like you okay so generally on your resume you want to list things out from most important to least important so if you're applying for a rle where your education is like super duper duper important you can shift that to the top of the page but if you're just normal like the rest of us typically it's best to go your name contact info relevant past experience education skills that is the conventional format however there is another ré format that I am a huge fan of and that I personally use and it is called a functional rume so a chronological resumé is when you list out your experience from oldest to most recent but a functional resumé is a skills forward resume so you have your name and contact information the same at the top but then instead of having your relevant experience front and center you have your skills front center and then underneath that you have your relevant experience education whatever else what I love about functional resumes is that they're great for people who have a big gap in their career and they don't want to draw so much attention to like their timeline or for people who are changing careers and you can really highlight your skills that you have as opposed to like your past experience or for people like me who have technical skills and those technical skills are the most important aspect of getting an interview so for example me I'm a video editor knowing Premiere knowing D Vinci knowing audition knowing After Effects all these soft is Paramount so I always list my skills right there at the top just so the recruiter knows okay this person knows what they're doing they have their name contact information professional summary skills and then companies I worked for at the bottom now if you're in an industry where they care about your career Arc and what companies you've worked for maybe like business or consulting or Finance then you might want to do a chronological resume but if they're really Des hiring you for your skills I love a good functional resume they are beautiful part four is keywords so after we've completed our brand picked out our template organized our sections it's time to start filling out your resume so again keywords are so so important because your resume is first going to be seen by probably like a hiring manager or recruiter so I'm not somebody who like is super super familiar with your job but they're given a job description and a bunch of keywords to look for and they're looking at your resume and they're just scanning for those keywords so you want to make sure that your resumé reflects the job description as much as possible so something that I like to do is I like to take the job description and just copy and paste it into my resume document that I'm working in and just keep it in mind as I'm writing my bullet points you could even throw the job description into you know something like Chachi BT and then write a prompt like I'm applying for this role and then write about your previous experience and then say can you you know write some bullet points that reflect the keywords in this job description another thing with these bullet points is that you want to quantify as much as possible I don't know what it is about humans but they love numbers we love statistics we gravitate towards numbers and they really simplify things so instead of saying oh I edited videos for this brand I would say edited 3 to five videos weekly you know just adding like a little juice and it doesn't have to be exact okay the numbers nobody's going to arrest you if the numbers are a couple digits off just just do your best so for example if I'm looking at this jop description and it says that I need to be able to work with this team and here are the skills I need to know you know Adobe Dropbox then I want to make sure that all of those words are in my resume at least once so that when their eyeballs are skimming they see all those keywords light up and they're like this is this is the person let's just give them the offer now let's double it double it for them give them all of our money sell the business with them something to keep in mind is that recruiters hiring managers whoever is reviewing your resume is going to spend most of their few seconds that they're skimming it in the top left corner of your resume they're going to kind of do a little scan so you want to make sure that the top left quadrant of your resume has some of those keywords some of those things to to grip them and make them think okay I should read the rest of this resume that's all you're trying to get them to do is just say okay I should spend a few more seconds on this resume put them in the yes pile so once you feel like you filled out the content of your resume and you're feeling pretty good about it you got numbers in there it's nice and juicy and specific you got keywords it's looking it's looking fire I would highly recommend downloading the Plugin grammarly or using spell check to proof read the snap out of that resume I am a typo queen and I go nowhere without my grammarly now I love it so much it saves my booty all day by the way I do free resume reviews on Instagram so follow me there for the details I will get a resumé and it'll have a a typo on it and every single time I see a resume with a typo and if I find the typo that means it's bad cuz I'm bad at finding typos they almost always have detail oriented in their skill section y'all if you have detail oriented in your skill section and you have errors on your resume like immediately know immediately know cuz I don't care immediately know immediately know immediately know so get grammarly use spell check get your detail oriented friend read your resonate backwards do what you have to do to make make sure there are no inconsistencies or errors inconsistencies are another big thing you want to make sure that all of your bullet points are using the same tense you want to make sure you're not using any pronouns you don't want to say like I edited videos you just want to say like edited videos it's just all these little professional etiquette things with resumés that we all follow for some reason and also if you do complete your resume and you're like this is looking this is looking pretty good Aaron I like this resume there is a website called job scan where you can throw your resume in and then you copy and paste the job description and you you plop that in as well and it's kind of like a generic ATS scanner so it will scan your resume scan the job description and then it will spit out like a score like you got a B minus make it better again it's not like they're not all ats's are not all the same but it's just kind of a fun thing to do it's like free I think for your first like five RS or something I'll put a link to job scan down in the description too wow lots of links in the description today so I can talk about RS all night all week all month but I need to stop myself here I mean at the end of the day I think resumes are kind of dumb because they discriminate against people who don't know how to design and they don't know how to write or they just don't know how to make them and nobody ever taught them so then they pay $800 for a resume writer to write the worst resume ever and they get entirely screwed over instead you screwed me that's what she no true story I get rumes all the time from people who paid for these fancy resume writers and guys just don't waste your money okay this is a free video all the templates down there are free chat gbt is free all these tools are available for free to you to be able to make your own resume to tailor it yourself for free and get the job you want so if you found this video useful please throw it a like subscribe introduce yourself down in the comments I'd love to meet you join the community follow me on Instagram Tik Tok sign up for my newsletter and remember you got this and I'll see you next [Music] time

Channel: AdviceWithErin

Views: 72,317

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Id: 7apj4sVvbro

Length: 17min 21sec (1041 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 01 2024