So, you have found an advertised opening for a real estate sales agent on a job board, in a real estate group that you would love to be a part of and you want to apply.
The only problem...your resume is terribly outdated! You know you can't submit it as it is. Not only is it missing the last five years of your experience -- and all the stellar sales accomplishments you have accumulated in that time -- it is still in the old-fashioned-looking style you learned to write in college. You've seen the resumes of some of your colleagues and you KNOW without a doubt that your resume also needs a modern makeover.
TIME FOR A RESUME MAKEOVER
It is true. As a professional resume writer who has been working in the industry for more than a quarter-century, I can confirm that resume styles and best practices are continuously evolving.
What was once considered essential, like a formal "Objective Statement," is now considered almost obsolete (there are exceptions to every rule, but that is a story for another day). Today, including an objective statement on your resume is a good way to date yourself and give the reader the impression that you haven't taken the time to keep up with modern trends. This is not exactly the great first impression that you want to make when applying for your dream job!
Making over your real estate sales resume using updated resume writing best practices will improve your job search, seize the attention of the most desirable employers, land you interviews, and ultimately win you the job you want.
A good makeover will give your resume a facelift, improving eye appeal and making it easier to read. The best makeovers will also take your resume content to the next level, compelling the reader to pick up the phone and call you for an interview, because you so clearly understand their needs and have the proven ability to meet them.
How can you write your resume in this way? Here are 5 changes that you can implement today.
#1: When You Write Your Real Estate Sales Resume Be Clear About Your Focus:
But wait a minute! Didn't I just tell you NOT to include an objective statement? Yes, I did. But take just a moment to think about it: Resumes need to be about the value that you OFFER to employers. Objectives, on the other hand, focus on you and your needs and what you want.
You must focus your resume, but you must do it in an employer-centric way. The moment an employer picks up your resume, they must understand who you are, what you offer, and how you fit in their organization.
What is the modern way to focus your resume? Easy. Include a headline and possibly a sub-headline as the very first content on your resume following your name and contact information. Here is an example.
And another...
#2 Include Results
Understand that the real estate group is making an investment when they hire you. Your real estate sales resume must clearly and convincingly demonstrate how you will deliver a higher return on investment (ROI) than your competitors for that same job. Fill your resume with quantified examples that illustrate how you have produced results in the past. Even if your prior sales experience was in another industry, include your accomplishments and results.
Here are a couple of examples:
#3 Keywords and ATS-Compatibility are Essential
Many of the most significant changes in resume best practices have come about as a direct or indirect effect of the growing importance of Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS). Most employers and recruiting firms, both large and small, use an ATS to store and keep track of the hundreds and thousands of resumes they receive.
Without getting into too much detail, an ATS is essentially a database. When you apply for a job, your resume is entered into the database which is later searched for the candidates who are the best match for a position. These searches are done using a combination of keywords and the resumes that include the keywords are recalled for manual review.
This means that even if you are the best candidate for a position, if your resume has errors that prevent it from being properly stored in the ATS or if your resume does not include the right mix of keywords, it may never even be reviewed by a human.
With that understanding, you can understand why it is so important that your resume is formatted in a way that is ATS friendly. As ATS standards are continuously changing and most people are not familiar with the technical requirements, it is a very wise choice to work with a professional resume writer who will ensure your resume is ATS friendly.
If you are absolutely determined to create your resume yourself, an alternative would be to use an ATS-compatible resume template. Just be careful and make sure the template you are using is ATS-friendly. Most of them available on the internet are not ATS-friendly and will do you more harm than good.
The keywords you include in your resume are also essential. A tip is to review 6-12 job announcements from real estate companies seeking real estate sales agents. Go through each of them looking for the terms they are using to describe the qualifications sought. THESE are the keywords you will want to use and use liberally, throughout your resume.
Examples of keywords that may be important for a real estate sales position could be words/phrases such as:
- lead prospecting
- multi-family properties
- residential real estate
- cold calling
- prospecting
- customer relationships
- real estate closings
- pricing strategies
- offer negotiations
- etc.
#4 Don't Date Yourself Unnecessarily
If you are a mid-life job seeker, you will want to avoid revealing your age in your resume. A good rule of thumb is to focus on no more than the most recent 10-15 years. If you have experience older than that and you have reason to think it is still relevant, you can always include it with a simple listing of earlier experience without the dates.
If you use this strategy, remember that you will also want to leave the year of graduation of any education. If you have included only the past 10 years of experience on your resume, but your degree was earned 28 years ago and you've included that year, it negates your strategy.
Your goal of this is NOT simply to hide your age. It is simply to give you a chance to interview and sell yourself in person, and this is a chance you may not get if conscious or subconscious age bias plays a role when the hiring manager reviews applications.
#5 Enhance Eye Appeal
While you need to be careful not to harm the ATS compatibility of your resume, there are lots of ways to enhance eye appeal while still ensuring ATS compatibility. ATS systems have become quite advanced in recent years and you can confidently use colors, styled fonts, and even graphics and charts and graphs. A skilled professional resume writer can help you with this (Discuss this with them ahead of time to make sure they know HOW to design an attractive but still-ATS-friendly resume. Many don't.)
As a real estate sales professional, you have an advantage. It is much easier to quantify the results of a sales position than it is for many other professions. This means you will likely have many opportunities to represent your accomplishments graphically.
Don't discount the importance of eye appeal. Imagine reviewing 100 generic-looking, text-based, black-and-white resumes and suddenly one stands out. The colorful touches on the resume make it pop, the text is thoughtfully formatted to make it easy to read, and it even includes some eye-catching charts to showcase results. Who do you think gets the interview?
Here are a few examples to get you thinking about what is possible. The first pages of these three very different resumes show how using color in your resume will help it to pop and stand out while reinforcing your brand and image.
Also, review your accomplishments to see if you can find ways to represent it graphically. Here are some examples from resumes, to inspire you.
There you have it! Five expert tips to help you transform, update, and modernize your resume. While it is almost always a wise investment to work with a professional resume writer, if you decide to do it yourself, these tips will help you turn your resume from ordinary into extraordinary.
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