13 Ways to Strengthen + Enhance Your Resume to Stand Out as an Applicant 

A resume creates a potential employer's first impression of you. While they will be paying close attention to your experience and skill set, there are ways to strengthen and enhance your resume so you attract more interest as an applicant. This can include ensuring that you have the best resume format, have used as much of the page to supplement your professional story as possible, and have presented all of your information in an error-free manner.

Learn more about ways to improve your resume—and connect it to your larger professional online presence. Afterward, keep enhancing your skill set with a Coursera Plus subscription, where you'll gain access to over 10,000 courses, and can further strengthen your resume by adding any certificates you complete.

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13 ways to improve your resume

There are certain key resume sections that your document should always include, such as a header, an outline of your experience, a summary of your skills, and, if relevant, the education you've earned. Beyond that, there are certain ways you can enhance your resume to be a more competitive job applicant.

1. Select the best resume template for your story. 

A resume tells your professional story, so the way you format your resume is one of the bigger decisions you'll make at the outset. There are different types of resumes to showcase your unique story.

• Chronological: A chronological resume is the most traditional format because it tells your professional story in a linear way that's often easiest for an applicant tracking system (ATS) to parse. Knowing that an ATS will increasingly be the first tool to review your resume, it may be beneficial to use this format.

• Functional: A functional resume breaks with the linear approach a chronological resume takes and instead highlights your skills rather than your work experience. This format can be useful if you don't have as much professional experience to showcase, but take note: An ATS might have a harder time parsing functional resumes, which can make it harder to get past the initial round of resume review.

• Combination: A combination resume combines the best of a chronological and a functional resume. It's particularly useful for experienced professionals because it showcases both skills and career progressions or transitions.

• Portfolio: This is more of a non-traditional resume. For creative professionals, like copywriters or graphic designers, who need to showcase the work they've done, a portfolio can sometimes replace a formal resume by detailing not just your skill set but also what you've accomplished in your past roles.

Learn more: How to Write a Resume with No Experience

2. Use your summary to highlight skills and expertise. 

A resume summary is not a required section, but it can provide a quick overview of who you are. A summary is typically one to two sentences in length, and appears in between your header and your experience section. It should include your area of expertise, a few relevant skills, and a sense of your impact.  

Resume summary example: Creative UX designer with over three years of experience. Skilled in app and website development, including user research, wireframe and site map design, and A/B testing.

For each job you apply to, review the job posting and identify any required skills you have that could be worth highlighting in the summary. Try to keep your skills list specific and quantifiable. For example, instead of "computer programming," note the different languages you know.

3. Include a robust and compelling objective.

A resume objective is another supplementary section you can add to quickly explain what you're hoping to achieve in your next role. This can be especially useful if you're relocating and beginning to apply for jobs in your new city, seeking to make a career pivot, or are a new student looking for your first role. In both instances, taking a moment to explain what you're looking for and the impact you stand to make can be beneficial.

A resume objective should include three elements: Who you are professionally, what you're hoping to achieve with your career move, and the value you'll add.

Resume objective example: Agency-trained and data-driven social media coordinator looking for a compelling opportunity in Boston, managing social media strategy, planning, and execution for a major health care brand.

4. Use relevant keywords.

One of the most important things to get your resume seen is to use keywords optimized for the ATS that recruiters use to find prospective employees. An ATS allows recruiters to process hundreds of resumes for relevant keywords and narrow down the pool of applicants they’ll invite to an interview.  

Find the best keywords by:

• Reviewing the job listing for keywords 

• Googling “[industry] keywords” and making a list of the most relevant ones

• Using a free ATS to scan your resume for opportunities to optimize your keywords

• Using industry-specific terms and jargon also demonstrates your familiarity with your new field.

How to ask ChatGPT to improve your resume

The popular artificial intelligence chatbot can help you research some of the skills and keywords employers are looking for. If you’re wondering how to use ChatGPT to improve your resume, consider trying one of the following prompts:

- Please provide a list of optimal keywords to include on a resume for the following job description...

- My skills, achievements, and experience are as follows. How would you recommend writing them for the [name of the job] job at [business name]?

- Evaluate my current resume and tell me how to revise it for a [name of role] job at [organization].

5. Use action verbs.

In conjunction with your ATS keyword research, find and replace flat language with action verbs, such as “spearheaded,” “implemented,” or “developed,” to describe the tasks you performed or projects you completed in previous roles. Action verbs are a great way to specify your experience and emphasize the impact you've had.

Action verb example: Implemented a backup system to add a layer of security for the company's data.

6. Quantify your accomplishments in previous roles.

As you summarize your past experience, it's important to try to quantify your impact as much as possible. This means not just describing what you've done but also what that work accomplished. At a time when many applicants have the experience and skills to do a job, potential employers are looking to get a better sense of how your responsibilities contributed to a company's larger goals.

Try to be specific and use concrete metrics that demonstrate the impact of your accomplishments. If you boosted social media engagement in your last marketing job, for example, include the percentage of that increase. Or if your data analysis efforts reduced the amount of time needed to reach key insights, include the amount of time you saved your team.

A formula for resume success

Use this formula when highlighting your professional accomplishments: "[Action verb] [X] to [Y], resulting in [Z]." Here’s an example a social media marketer might use: “Designed visual content to improve brand awareness, resulting in a 30-percent increase in Facebook conversion.”

7. Include a section for hobbies and interests.

This section can show more of your personality and abilities that you did not list in other areas of the resume. Your hobbies and interests can be great conversation starters and position you as a well-rounded employee with versatile skills.

If you're looking for your first job and don't yet have much professional experience, you might turn to your extracurricular activities to highlight key job skills, such as problem-solving, critical thinking, creativity, or teamwork.

8. Connect your online presence. 

It's customary to list your name, email, phone number, and location in your header, but you can also add your LinkedIn profile—or a link to your portfolio or website. These details offer recruiters and hiring managers an opportunity to continue learning about you.

In that case, make sure your LinkedIn profile has been updated with a profile picture, your most recent work history, and even a summary. You can also let recruiters know you're interested in discussing new opportunities by enabling LinkedIn's "Open to Work" feature. Be sure to remove anything from your online accounts that you don’t want a potential employer to view.  

9. Call out any awards you've earned.

Awards on your resume serve as third-party validation of your professional excellence, but they become even more powerful when you provide context about their significance and scope. Rather than just listing an award name and date, briefly explain what the recognition was for and what specific achievements led to your selection.

10. Highlight any professional development you've completed.

Education is a key section on any resume, but if you've taken it upon yourself to develop new skills and complete any professional development programs, such as a certificate or a certification, you'll want to highlight those credentials in a separate section.

Add certificates to your resume in a specific "Certifications and Licenses" section, located underneath your more formal education section. If you don't want to call them out there, you can also mention what you've earned in your resume summary.

11. Get ahead of concerns. 

Just as you include details about your professional history and career objectives that employers will find attractive, remain mindful of potential red flags on your resume and address them. 

Red flags might include staying at a job for just a few months or a gap in employment (though gaps are incredibly common and should not be a source of shame). For gaps in your employment history lasting longer than six months, consider including what you did during that time. Caregiving, travel, volunteer work, and independent projects are all opportunities to highlight related transferable skills.  

12. Eliminate clutter. 

Once you have most of the sections filled in, scan the resume for unnecessary details that you can remove. Typically, your resume should fit on a single page unless you have more than 10 to 15 years of related professional experience.

Look for opportunities to trim the following:

• Job experience from long ago, particularly if it’s not relevant to the position you’re applying for

• Graduation dates

• Details from your hobbies and interests section that are the least relevant

• Buzzwords like “self-starter” and “hard worker”

13. Proofread your resume before submitting.

In a competitive job market where hiring managers often receive hundreds of resumes to review for a single position, even minor errors can be enough to move your application to the rejection pile. Careful proofreading, including checking for consistent formatting, accurate dates, and proper grammar, helps ensure your resume presents you as the polished, detail-oriented professional you are.

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