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You've found a job opening for a position you'd love to have. You expect you'll have a lot of competition for such an incredible job. How can you make your résumé stand out from other applicants?

Stephanie Hawley, director of Union University's Vocatio Center for Life Calling and Career, offers the following tips to increase your chances of getting an interview.

1. Tailor your résumé.

"Recruiters are not impressed with a generic résumé," Hawley says. "If you're leaving it up to the reader to make the connections between your experience and their position, you're missing an opportunity."

Since this is one piece of the puzzle that you can control as a job searcher, Hawley says it's important to take the time to translate your experiences in a way that shows the employer how you'll fulfill the particular role for which you are applying.

2. Make it easy to skim.

Formatting a résumé can often feel overwhelming, so many people default to flash templates. But Hawley says that while templates often work for a specific set of experiences, they may not showcase your information in a positive way. She suggests using formatting strategically and consistently to help the reader quickly skim your document and access the highlights.

3. Relevance is key.

This goes along with tailoring your résumé. How do you know what matters most? How do you decide what to keep and what to cut?

"Use the job description as a guide for how to structure your résumé and for knowing what to keep, what to emphasize and how to talk about it," Hawley says.

Be honest and accurate. You don't want to get caught in a lie, nor do you want to accidentally misrepresent your experiences. But you can effectively translate your experiences to a specific context by focusing on transferable skills, relevant tasks and using industry buzzwords.

4. Demonstrate competencies and accomplishments.

If your work experience bullet points read like a generic job description, your résumé may not get the attention you're wanting.

"I can Google a job description, but I can't know how you made a meaningful contribution in that role without you showing me," Hawley says. It's important to use meaningful metrics to quantify accomplishments and emphasize transferable skills. "Answered phones" is a task, but how can you stress your effective communication and customer service skills? What did you accomplish by answering phones? Were you selling products, answering questions, scheduling appointments or something else?

5. Make it a team effort.

If creating a résumé feels daunting, enlist help from your network of family, peers, employers and industry professionals to help you evaluate your experiences and decide what is relevant.

Ask for feedback on your résumé, and ask for multiple proofreaders to help you present a polished document.

"Remember, an employer is expecting that you're putting your best foot forward during the application and hiring process," Hawley says. "If you allow sloppy formatting or grammatical errors now, what will they assume about your work and professionalism on an average work day?"

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MORE INFO:

With so many resources and opinions available, it's often hard to know where to turn for advice and who to trust. Remember, no one person or website has all the answers as preferences vary by industry and even by company. Check out sites like The Balance and LinkedIn for more great insights, but remember to do your own research and craft your own résumé considering what's important in your field.

DID YOU KNOW?

Union University's Vocatio Center helps students understand more clearly who God has uniquely created them to be and to assist them in discovering opportunities to live out their calling in service to others. It offers career resources both to current students and to Union alumni.