#JobSearch : How To Update Your Resume And Cover Letter During Covid-19. To Stand Out you Need to Make a Few Updates.
To stand out in a job search during Covid-19, you need to make a few updates to your resume and cover letter. Most companies hiring right now are working remotely for the foreseeable future, so it’s important that your resume showcases your ability to work in a remote environment even if you haven’t done so before.
Here are five ways to make both your resume and cover letter stand out and increase your chances of being selected for an interview.
Highlight how your past experience translates to remote work.
Chances are, you were already using some of the technology used in remote work like Slack, Zoom, and shared drives before the pandemic started. Highlight how you’ve used them in the past to showcase your comfort with the tech that makes virtual work possible. Think about the ways you managed, worked with a team, or worked independently and what skills made you successful, then tie them into the remote position you’re applying for, like working with colleagues in a different time zone or office location. Of course, if you’ve already held a position remotely, be sure make note of that on your resume by adding ‘remote’ as the location.
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What Skill Sets Do You have to be ‘Sharpened’ ?
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Show that you’re a team player.
Working as part of a remote team can be more challenging than working together in person, so being a team player is even more important now than ever. To showcase your teamwork skills, be sure to describe times that you worked as part of a team in your resume. When describing a result, write ‘worked as part of a 5-person team to achieve a sales increase of 20% over four months’ rather than just listing the sales increase. You can further elaborate on how your worked together with the team during your interview, so leave it short and sweet on the resume itself.
Update your skills section.
The skills section on a resume is often neglected, but when used correctly it can be quite beneficial. Rather than just listing skills, take it one step further and describe how you used them. If you’re proficient in coding languages, describe how you created a project using that language. You want to highlight skills that are relevant to the position and set you apart from other candidates. Don’t list things like Zoom, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, or anything that practically everyone is proficient in – listing those skills makes you look like a commodity, not a stand out candidate.
Showcase your written communication skills.
Use both your resume and cover letter to highlight communication skills. With communication happening via email, chat, text, and video now, the ability to communicate well via writing is a highly sought after skill. A clean, easy to read resume showcases your ability to convey information clearly and concisely. A well-written cover letter further showcases your writing ability and gives a bit of insight into your communication style. Documents free of typos and grammatical errors show that you pay attention to detail.
Be honest if you were laid off or furloughed due to Covid-19.
You don’t want to have a gap in employment on your resume without an explanation. While in the past being laid off would not be something that you’d readily share, it’s no longer nearly as problematic. Now it serves as an explanation as to why you’ve been out of work for a period of time. On your resume, include when and why you were laid off in one of the bullet points under the job description. Don’t mention being laid off on your cover letter, as it’s not relevant there.
Forbes.com | September 25, 2020 | Ashira Prossack
