1. Review role qualifications and use them to customize your resume.

It’s important to apply to positions within your skill set, experience, and interests, as sometimes applying for too many different positions at a company can be seen negatively.  

Make sure your resume is specific to the position for which you’re applying. The more it tells a recruiter about your experience, scope, and success, the more likely they’ll be to recognize you as a good fit for the position and pass on your resume. Customizing your resume for a position by including the listed qualifications helps you put your best foot forward – telling recruiters what they want to hear and how well your experience fits with the role.  

Tip: Find someone to review your resume ahead of time. Someone who works in the specific field or industry to which you’re applying will have a better understanding of what a recruiter will be looking for, and they can help you cater your resume if need be.

2. Use STAR formatted statements to highlight your relevant experience

Whether it’s for a resume or an interview, the STAR format gives you a great way to speak about your experiences by laying out the situation, task, action, and result. When you bundle your experience in that format, recruiters can quickly understand the scope, scale, and success that you’ve had in different situations. Past behavior tends to be a great predictor of how you’ll do in the future.  

At Aramark, we deploy behavioral based interviewing in many situations. We like to have a conversation with you to understand what your experiences were like and how they apply to the positions for which we’re hiring. The STAR format is a great tool to prep for those conversations to help you formulate, condense, and present your thoughts in the best way possible. For tips on interviewing, check out our blog, How to Ace your Next Job Interview.

3. Keep your resume concise and easy to read.

The length of your resume should be one to two pages. Use bullet points to elaborate on your experience while keeping the information digestible for readers, in addition to using legible fonts in size 11 or 12. White space on a page allows for easy review and understanding of everything you will bring to the position. 

4. You're evaluating the employer as much as they're evaluating you.

When you find a new job and employer, it’s a mutual match between two parties. Research a company on its website to learn more about its mission, community impact goals, how it engages its workforce, and other factors that matter most to you in your job search. Look at a company’s LinkedIn page and other online platforms to learn more about opportunities within the organization.  

5. A resume gets you a phone screening. The screening gets you the interview. The interview gets you the job.

“It’s a matter of investing time in the process.” 

The more you understand about the position, the company, and the requirements of the job, the better chance you have of getting your resume viewed and moving on in the process. If you genuinely invest time in the application process, the phone screen is where we’ll have the opportunity to talk, and you’ll have the opportunity to tell your story.  

Our partner, Hiring Our Heroes, provides job preparation support through their Career Connectors Program. Members of the military community are encouraged to sign up for career support at Career Connectors General Intake – Hiring Our Heroes.