The Top 4 Resume Trends in 2022

Your resume is your introduction to an employer. So we don't need to go over how important a good resume is, but things have changed a lot over the past few years. With 93% of employers looking to do some hiring in 2022, your dream career could be one application away.

But how do you make sure you stand out from the crowd in 2022? Well, allow us to walk you through the top 4 trends you need to pay attention to.

Highlight your skills

First things first, it's important to highlight the relevant skills you have. There is a good saying that goes along with this, "show, don't tell". Now just listing your skills doesn't always have the impact you want. It's best to do a combination of listing and giving examples of those skills. To help make the hiring process easier, some employers use an "Applicant Track System" (ATS) system. This system scans through resumes and locates certain keywords.

In 2022, employers are looking for a combination of both hard and soft skills. It's no surprise that 50% of employers say that candidates need to describe their skills better. So how do you describe your skills better? Let's go through it.

How to list your hard and soft skills on your resume

• Read through the job description and pay attention to the skills they're looking for
• Make a list of all the skills that the employer is looking for
• Look for words like "research", "develop", and "customer service", this signals skills they're looking for
• Make another list of your soft and hard skills, then compare the two
  50% of employers say candidates need to be able to articulate their skills better

• Copy some of the wording directly from the listing and incorporate it into your resume

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Keep it relevant

According to Forbes, one of the biggest mistakes that recruiters see is a candidate listing too much. When writing your resume, ask yourself the following questions:

• Is this job/experience/skill relevant to the job posting?
• Which specific qualities are transferable?
• Can I think of any examples of me using this skill? or
• Can I add any examples to make this stand out?

Keep in mind, recruiters really only care about the last 3 years of your employment. So unless you have a super relevant past job, it's best to use the most recent work experience. If you choose to mention some of your older roles, list them in a summary format. This way they don't take up too much space, which leaves you with more room to highlight other areas.

 Bonus Tip: As a general rule of thumb, any jobs from over 10 years ago should be left off your CV.

Avoid fancy or complicated design elements

As tempting as it can be to add a little creative flair to your resume, it's best to stick with traditional formats. As mentioned above, many companies use ATS so you want to use a resume format that can be easily read by them. Take out any elements that can be confusing to the software.

Also make sure that when you're submitting your resume, you are sending it in the right format. If you have complicated design elements and export them in the wrong format, your resume has a higher chance of not rendering the way you intend. This can be a quick route to not going to the next step.

Keep your headings or titles simple as well. Don't try to be creative with unusual titles, stick to simple, classic titles instead.

Get your social media in check

Yes, you read that right. Your potential employers will try to search you up on social media platforms. Up to 84% of organizations now use social media as a recruitment tool.

So what do you do now? Well, when you're looking for a new career just give your social media platforms a little clean up. Don't want to clean up all your social accounts? You don't have to, you can just as easily make certain accounts private but you should be searchable on other platforms like LinkedIn.

 LinkedIn is one of the most popular recruitment platforms. It was designed specifically for job seekers and employers. To really give your profile a boost, add your resume to your LinkedIn. This will make it easier for recruiters to find and reach out to you.