Succeeding With Resume Now: Your Questions Answered
Discover how Resume Now simplifies creating resumes, CVs, and cover letters. This page guides you through our tools and shares essential tips to help your application stand out.
Your Guide to Resume Now's AI Resume Builder
Resume Now’s team of career development experts, certified professional resume and cover letter writers, and recruitment specialists are here to help job seekers get hired. We do this by offering thousands of recruiter-approved, job-specific resume and cover letter examples, a variety of resume templates and cover letter designs, expert reviews, professional resume and cover letter writing services, advice, resources, job search tools, and an award-winning Resume Maker.
Resume Now’s Resume Maker makes it easy to build an interview-winning resume in just minutes. Here’s how:
- Choose a resume template using our resume examples to guide you.
- Answer a few questions (i.e., “How much work experience do you have?”).
- Fill out each section of the template. We’ll help you!
- Customize your resume to suit the job for which you’re applying.
- Proofread and edit your resume.
- Save and download it.
- Send it to the employer along with your cover letter.
You can write a resume in just 15 minutes with Resume Now’s AI Resume Builder.
Creating and customizing a professional CV using Resume Now’s AI CV Builder is incredibly easy.
- Click on the “Create Your Resume” button to begin. Then, choose a template from one of the four categories (Popular, Unique, Modern, and Classic).
- Follow the instruction prompts from the builder to enter your contact information and work experience.
- After completing the guided sections, you’ll be able to edit your document. If you end up back in the dashboard after saving your document, simply click the pencil icon in the center of your document to start editing again. You will find the breakdown of your CV sections on the right side of the edit menu, below the “Spell Check” function. To get to the custom sections menu, click “Add a Section.”
- Once you’ve clicked the “Add a Section” plus sign, you will be directed to the menu with available add-ons such as Activities & Honors, Accomplishments, and Certifications. You can also select “Add a Custom Section” to create your sections.
- When you’ve finished adding a new section, you will be directed back to the editing menu, where you can go over the area with your mouse to move, edit, or delete unnecessary information. To organize the section layout of your document, hover over the area you want to move, and an icon with arrows will pop up on the top right of the section box.
- Once you have returned to the editing menu, if you would like to format your document, click the formatting arrow at the bottom of the page, in between “template” and “color.” That’s where you can adjust the margins, font size, font style, and spacing.
- To choose from eight different colors for your document, simply go back to the bottom menu and select the color arrow on the far right.
- If you want to change your template selection, go to the far left of the bottom menu and select the template arrow.
- Make sure to spell check your document and then click the “Save & Next” button by the color arrow before downloading your CV to save your work.
Resume Now’s Cover Letter Generator makes it easy to write an attention-grabbing cover letter fast. Here’s how:
- Choose a cover letter template using our cover letter examples to guide you.
- Upload your existing cover letter or personalize one of ours.
- Use the job-specific example text from our builder to help you create compelling and descriptive paragraphs based on your job experience and qualifications.
- Polish it off with our easy-to-use formatting tool and spell-checker.
- Proofread it for grammar and accuracy.
- Save and download it.
- Send it to the employer along with your resume.
Resume Now’s Cover Letter Builder takes just 15 minutes to use from start to finish!
With Full Access to Resume Now, you can:
- Download and print unlimited resumes and cover letters in any format (PDF, MS Word, .TXT, Rich Text, web page).
- Access your resumes and cover letters anytime from anywhere.
- View dozens of resumes and cover letter templates for a range of industries.
- Search our extensive jobs network by industry, location, or company, and apply with just one click.
- Check your resume for grammar, spelling, and other common mistakes instantly.
- Prepare for interviews.
- Get real-time salary information for jobs in your field and location.
Resume Now’s professional resume writers can help! Sign up in three simple steps:
- Log in to your dashboard.
- Click “Documents.”
- Press “Find out more” under “Resume and Cover Letter Writing.”
Yes! Resume Now has certified professional resume writers who create all the information about resumes and cover letters on the site.
While eyeing new job opportunities, you need to be able to recognize signs of job scams, which are becoming more prevalent every day. At Resume Now, we believe that raising awareness to combat these scams and fraudulent activities is the best defense. We encourage you to exercise caution when considering any job offer and urge you to stay informed about potential fraud and schemes.
In this article, we provide some helpful tips for how to recognize suspicious activity and where to report it.
To unpublish your professional profile, follow the steps below. This will make your profile no longer visible:
Enter your account settings: Locate your account settings and open them to find the unpublish option.
Find the unpublish option under Privacy Settings: Beneath the Privacy Settings, you’ll find the option to unpublish your profile.
Confirm: You will be prompted to confirm that you wish to unpublish your profile.
Once you unpublish your profile, it will no longer be publicly accessible. If you need further assistance, contact our support team. We are here to help.
Mastering Your Resume: FAQs Answered
A resume template is a useful tool that:
- Provides the overall structure and design of a resume
- Organizes your professional information within a professionally designed framework
- Gives your resume a polished look
- Is a reliable blueprint for a successful resume
After choosing the best resume template for your needs, it’s time to write your resume. Resume Now’s Resume Generator helps you do this section by section, quickly and easily. Just click “Create a new resume,” and we will walk you through the steps to fill out each section. We’ll even provide relevant keywords and give you tips throughout the process. You’ll have the chance to save your progress along the way and edit your work before you save and download your final resume.
Yes! Resume Now’s professional resume and cover letter templates are created by certified professionals and are recruiter-approved.
An applicant tracking system (ATS) is a software program that recruiters and hiring managers use to scan resumes and cover letters for relevance to job openings. They look for keywords and phrases that match the job description and rank candidates based on how much their resumes and cover letters meet the employer’s requirements for the position.
Resume Now’s resume templates are optimized for ATS software. Our professionally designed, recruiter-approved templates ensure proper placement of your information, correct use of headers and footers, appropriate fonts, and clear margins. Having all those pieces in place makes it easy for ATS programs to accept resumes.
A resume example is a guide for job applicants who want inspiration for writing their resumes. Resume Now’s library of resume samples shows job seekers how to format their resumes; helps them choose the best design for their experience level, industry, and job title; and provides insight into resume writing best practices.
To get the best use of a resume example:
- Think about the type of job you want.
- Consider your work experience.
- Select the appropriate format to showcase your accomplishments.
- Review the design, the template used to build your resume.
- Study the resume example and apply what you learn to your resume.
There are three standard resume formats: chronological, functional and combination. The chronological format is the most widely used, and it works perfectly for job seekers with a long work history. Functional resumes, also known as skills-based resumes, put job seekers’ skills front and center. The combination format is just as it sounds: a mix of the functional and chronological formats.
The resume format you choose depends on your career level, work history, skills, and professional goals.
Resumes should be no more than two pages long. Most job seekers will use only one page, but some applicants with more than 10 years of experience will find that two pages suit them better. A well-written resume will always be short and to the point while conveying a candidate’s qualifications accurately and clearly.
Yes! You need to create a new resume for every job you apply to. You must customize your information for each position, company, and industry. No job is identical: Even if you apply for roles with the same job title in the same industry, there will be differences. Besides, every company has different perspectives and goals, and your resume should speak to those things first and foremost. So read each job description carefully and tailor your resume to match it.
Resume Now’s AI Resume Builder makes it easy to customize your resume for each job. You can start from scratch by picking a new template for each job, or you can edit and rewrite a previous resume after you’ve saved and downloaded it. Just make sure you save it with a new file name for the next job.
Unless you are an actor or a model, you should not add your photo to your resume.
Here are the top five reasons why:
- It’s not necessary. Your resume has to be succinct and fit all your relevant qualifications, so you need all the space you can get. A photo won’t help you get an interview, but it will eat up precious space.
- It’s distracting. You want hiring managers to focus on your relevant attributes and work experience, not what you look like.
- It can be used to discriminate. Whether intentional or not, a hiring manager might discriminate against you based on race, gender, or age. Most companies have policies to reject resumes with photos instantly to avoid accusations of discrimination down the line.
- It is not ATS-friendly. Applicant tracking systems, which most companies use to parse and scan resumes for relevance, cannot read images. If an ATS can’t scan your otherwise perfect resume because it has a photo, then it will deprioritize your resume and make it less likely that you’ll get the job.
- It is considered unprofessional. It’s true. Many hiring managers think resumes with headshots are unprofessional, primarily due to the factors listed above. Those hiring managers won’t take you seriously as a candidate and will pass you over without even bothering to read your credentials.
There are several reasons to avoid using graphics and fancy fonts on your resume, including:
- Applicant tracking systems (ATS) can’t scan resumes filled with graphics and inappropriate fonts, so it’s likely your resume won’t make it to a hiring manager, and all your effort will be wasted.
- Some hiring managers view fancy resumes as showy and narcissistic—traits that are often frowned upon.
- They detract from your qualifications. Hiring managers are busy, so they need to be able to read through your resume quickly. Don’t make them look for your relevant information, or they may just move on to the next candidate.
- Some hiring managers see graphical resumes as unprofessional. Sure, a highly stylized resume might get you noticed, but not in a positive way.
Accomplishments are vital to your resume because they tell employers precisely what you can achieve for them. Add them to your work history instead of listing your responsibilities and quantify them with numbers for the most significant impact.
For example:
Instead of: “Takes vital signs, records health data, and performs procedures including venipuncture, measuring blood pressure, pulse rate, respiration, weight and height.
Try: “Measures and records health data and performs routine procedures such as venipuncture for an average of 65 patients per day with a consistent patient approval rating of 100%.”
The best way to determine which skills to use on your resume is to read the job description carefully and take note of which requirements match your skill set. List those skills on your resume, taking care to use a mix of soft and hard skills to convey that you are well-rounded.
You can add as many previous jobs to your resume as you’d like as long as they’re relevant to the target job and fit in one to two pages. A good rule of thumb is you should only go back about 10-15 years because your earlier experience may be out of date. For most job seekers, that amounts to including somewhere between three and seven jobs, but the exact number will differ depending on the person.
By the way, if you’ve held many jobs, you should definitely use a format that emphasizes work experience, like a chronological or a combination resume format. If you haven’t held many jobs, a functional resume is the way to go.
Crafting Your Curriculum Vitae (CV): FAQs Answered
In the United States, a CV is a document that lists a person’s entire academic and professional history. They include publications, research projects, fellowships, speaking engagements, and lectures. Graduate students, academics, scientists, and doctors tend to use them.
In the United States, a CV is a lengthy and comprehensive document that contains an applicant’s professional and academic achievements. CVs are used more often by those whose jobs rely on research, publications, and public speaking. In other countries, CVs are the equivalent of an American resume. They are short documents that applicants use from a broad spectrum of industries.
In the United States, resumes are concise documents of no more than two pages that applicants from the public sector, government agencies, and nonprofit organizations use to show their work history, education, relevant skills, and top achievements.
A CV can be any length necessary to provide the required information about a candidate.
You should use a CV if you are a Ph.D. candidate, professor, or other academic, scientist, researcher, or medical doctor. You are applying for a fellowship, grant, teaching position, or a job in your field.
CV templates are useful tools that provide the layout and design required to give a CV a professional look and feel. Resume Now’s professionally designed CV templates come in various styles and are fully customizable, so you can add sections to suit your background and goals.
After choosing the best CV template for your needs, you can use Resume Now’s AI Resume Builder to fill out your information, section by section. You’ll get relevant keyword suggestions and other tips along the way. You’ll also be able to save your progress and come back and edit your work later, before you decide to save and download your final result.
A CV example is a guide for candidates who want inspiration for writing their own CVs. Resume Now’s library of CV samples shows job seekers how to format a CV, choose the best design for their experience, and incorporate CV writing best practices.
To get the best use of a CV example:
- Think about the type of job you want or grant you seek.
- Consider your professional and academic experience.
- Select the appropriate format to showcase all of your accomplishments.
- Review the design, the template used to build your CV.
- Study the CV example and apply what you learn to your resume.
Cover Letters Made Easy: FAQs Answered
Cover letter templates are professionally designed and formatted tools to help applicants write their cover letters quickly. They:
- Provide the overall structure and design of cover letters
- Organize cover letters within a recruiter-approved framework
- Give cover letters a polished look
- Are reliable blueprints for successful cover letters
After choosing the best cover template for your needs, it’s time to write your cover letter. Resume Now’s Cover Letter Generator helps you do this section by section, quickly and easily. Once you click “Create a new cover letter,” we will walk you through the steps to fill out each section. We’ll even provide relevant keywords and give you tips throughout the process. You’ll have the chance to save your progress and edit your work before you save and download your final document.
A cover letter example offers inspiration for writing your own cover letter. These samples show job seekers how to format a cover letter; which design to choose based on their experience level, industry, and job title; and how to write the best letter for their situation.
To get the best use of a cover letter example:
- Think about the type of job you want.
- Consider your work experience.
- Review the design, which is the template you will use to build your cover letter.
- Study the cover letter example and apply what you learn to your cover letter.
A cover letter format is a framework that makes your cover letter clean and readable—from the way it is organized to its line spaces, margins, font types, and font sizes.
If you have looked for the hiring manager’s name but still can’t find it, then address them in specific terms, like “Accounting Department Hiring Manager.” That way, your cover letter will likely go to the right person.
Don’t use phrases such as “Dear Sir or Madam,” or “To Whom It May Concern,” not only because they are outdated and convey that you have not tried to find the hiring manager, but also because they are too general and could result in your resume failing to reach the right person.
Unless the job application instructions state “Do not send a cover letter,” you should always send a cover letter, even if the instructions do not ask for one or if they imply that one is not necessary. When coupled with a strong resume, a good cover letter can be the critical factor in getting an interview. This is because cover letters help you stand out, provide the opportunity to introduce yourself, and give depth and context to the information on your resume.
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