Spice Up Your Resume - 3 Tips To Nailing Your First Impression

You know what they say - you never get a second chance to make a first impression! Breaking into the creative industries requires standing out from the rest. The secret (sssh!) is in creating that wow-factor application which identifies you as a flamingo in a flock of pigeons. As the Inka team continues to grow and expand, we’ve taken a quick pause to consider what makes an applicant scream “I AM THE ONE FOR YOU” in the form of a subtly sophisticated resume.

Here are our top three tips to nailing your first impression.

1. Only include the key and relevant details

This may seem obvious, but it’s easy to fall into the trap of putting everything we have done in our lives into our resume, in the hope that more is more. But in the case of your resume, less is definitely more. Your potential employer is looking for relevant skills and experience, so you want them to be able to pick up this information quickly and easily. That time you spent doing work experience at the vet cleaning out litter trays? Probably not. Include a short snippet about yourself, your most recent experience, your key skills, background, references and your contact info. Most importantly, make sure the information is relevant to the job and tells them who you are. Check out the examples below.

2. Get creative with your design and format

What’s that saying? In a sea of fish…be the mermaid? You want your resume to be the mermaid of resumes and the easiest way to do that, is to make it visually pleasing. And when I say visually pleasing, I mean in terms of design and formatting. Is it easy to read, does it stand out, does it say something about me? If an employer is receiving hundreds of resumes, you want yours to be eye-catching and a beautifully designed resume shows that you take pride in your work and are willing to put in extra effort. A super easy way to do this is on Canva – it’s free, easy to use and they already have resume templates made up, all you have to do is put in your info.

3. Include a photo of yourself

Now this is always a point of contention and not appropriate for all industries, but I’m all for including a great photo of yourself in your resume. A picture tells a thousand words and if you nail this, you are going to tell your potential employer so much about you in an instant. Of course, you have to use the right picture. This is NOT the time for your fave Snapchat dog filter selfie. Your photo should reflect who you are and why you are a great match for the role and, very importantly, the company culture.

There you have it, 3 simple steps to up your resume game and help you secure that dream job.