6 Marketing Strategies For Your Résumé

Jaideep Patel shares six marketing tips you can use to make your résumé work that much harder for you.

The world of marketing is fast-paced, competitive and exciting. Marketers work around the clock to promote specific products or services (or even ideas) to targeted groups of customers. Many of these tips are tried-and-tested, and some work wonderfully well in helping you create a résumé that gets you noticed.

Tip #1: Know your target

Start by understanding how your target (in this case, the recruiter) behaves on a daily basis. Recruiters are busy, constantly skimming through résumés after résumés, day in and day out. The implementation of AI and automation in the recruitment process can’t replace the human element required to spot the right talent for the right job. So make this task easier for recruiters by keeping your résumé (especially the first page) neat, tidy and easy to read.

Tip #2: Optimise your headline

While it is tempting to brand yourself as a ‘Creative Extraordinaire’ instead of the plain old ‘Graphic Designer’, remember that the best headlines work when they are descriptive. Keep it simple and don’t make it hard for recruiters to understand what you do, or what job you are applying for. Being creative in a résumé can work against you, and this is a good example.

Tip #3: Remain consistent with your brand

When you’re in the market for a new job, your name is your brand. So be consistent with it. If you’re going to use ‘Wan Rohaini’ for work-related communication (résumé, cover letter, email address, etc) then stick to that. It is completely fine to use a shortened (or a simpler version of your name if it is hard to spell) for job-seeking purposes, as long as you are consistent with it.

Tip #4: Stand out from the crowd

There will be dozens (if not hundreds) of people applying for the same position as you, so how do you stand out from the rest? Start by positioning yourself within your industry of choice. Among the things you can do to build your authority is using your social media networks to create content relevant to your area of work. It can be as simple as blog posts or observations on happenings within the industry.

Tip #5: Protect your brand

We discussed being consistent with your brand, but you will also need to protect it. Your greatest enemies: typos, grammatical errors and formatting slip-ups. This will tarnish your personal brand – not to mention lower your chances of getting a job. Sending in a sloppy résumé is no excuse these days, so take every precaution to protect your greatest asset: your reputation.

Tip #6: Use the right platform for the right purpose

Your résumé should be clean, tidy and easy to read, so it’s time for you to explore other platforms to highlight other things, such as your creative skills. It doesn’t matter if you are applying for one of the more conventional sectors, such as banking or accounting – creating a visumé or a website will display a more interesting and balanced side of yourself to the recruiter.