Recent developments have made a significant impact on the workforce and have moved the companies to opt for remote work for their employees.
This is an implication of drastic changes in hiring trends, and you need to change your resume with it.
As remote work is still a new subject in the minds of companies and recruiters, they hesitate to shortlist individuals because of the belief that not everyone can handle all the job responsibilities without any supervision. So your resume has to have essentials that kill all these doubts.
Hence, making remote experience shine in a resume is very important, and here is how you can do that:
Use the ideal resume format
A well-optimized reverse chronological resume format works really well if you are trying to portray a continuous career progression.
However, if you have had traditional office-based work profiles, this format may fall short in conveying your remote expertise.
Let’s say you used skills and methodologies to work remotely across all your profiles. But you need to show those skills in a manner that highlights remote experience.
In such cases, a functional format works best.
It allows you to create a separate section that works as a summary of skills that are relevant to your target profile, and the professional experience section remains as a timeline for your work profiles. In this separate “summary of skills” section, you can club points that are relevant to your target profile.
Present your remote experience effectively
Before the pandemic, you might have treated remote jobs as a temporary measure while you looked for full-time office-based profiles.
These sidelined points would have made minimal impact on your resume. Some might have even skipped these roles altogether from their resumes.
But, times have changed. Today listing all your work profiles, especially the remote profiles in the work experience section is important.
And here is how you can do that:
Include remote skills: Here the idea is to bring forth the skills that link you digitally to the company for which you are working. These skills can range from telecommunication to online collaboration. Time management is one of the most important challenges while working remotely. Thus, presenting your hands-on experience with time management tools will give you an add-on advantage to score a respectable remote gig.
Write freelance work: If you have any freelance work experience or any independent project you undertook, include it in your resume. When you work remotely, it requires you to conduct most of your work independently. Hence, you need to showcase those skills in your resume.
Leverage the job description
Resume skills are a great way to make the recruiter aware of your prowess.
However, when you are targeting a remote job, not all your skills are equally valued. Hence, you need to emphasize on skills that are relevant to the profile you are targeting.
To emphasize such skills, you need to customize your resume as per the job description. The idea is that your resume should encompass all the essential elements of the job requirement.
Further, this helps with passing the applicant tracking system (ATS) as well. It is software for screening resumes with keywords that are relevant to the job.
You can extract these keywords from the job description and add them to your resume, and bridge the gap between your skills and the job requirements. Though do not include skills that you cannot validate in your resume.
Showcase your newly acquired remote skills
A new range of courses has sprung up during this pandemic to help employees with the sudden transition to working from home. Platforms like LinkedIn have introduced courses to find remote work.
From online tutoring to web development, you can find a plethora of courses suiting your interests and needs.
Though such courses can help you develop professionally, you need to showcase these skills in your resume too.
But the question is how to write this expertise in your resume. Create a ‘certifications section’ in your resume and make bullets for key modules that are relevant to your profile.
It can work as a lifesaver when you are trying to set yourself apart from the competition. Further, look for certifications that are relevant to the profile you are targeting and to improve your chances of getting shortlisted.
Additionally, include key points from the projects/case studies that were part of your certification.
Write a summary
We know that the summary of your resume is probably the first thing that the recruiter notices. So if you wish to garner the recruiter’s attention, you need to create a stellar career summary.
With a few modifications, you can leverage the professional summary to showcase your abilities to work remotely.
Let’s check the example below:
3+ years experienced Graphic Designer with a proven track record of managing key stakeholders through a digital medium. Adept at telecommuting with teams and working independently. Proficient in conducting webinars for team members to showcase the key intricacies of a project.
Conclusion
With the changing recruitment environment, it has fallen upon professionals to optimize their resumes to reflect their ability to adapt.
Remote work is the new buzz and remote skills have become a necessity today for people looking for jobs.
We advise you to renounce the much loved reverse-chronological format and accept the functional format to showcase your remote working ability.
