As the Founder and Managing Partner of SCM Talent Group - a Supply Chain recruiting firm, Rodney Apple has decades of experience reviewing resumes. He began his recruiting career by building out Home Depot's very first supply chain management team more than 20 years ago. Since then, he has placed thousands of high level professionals for some of America's biggest brands. Rodney also hosts a podcast where he and his partners talk about career development and advancement strategies. The team of manufacturing recruiters at SCM Talent Group has now grown to over 10 recruiters.

In this video, Rodney takes some time to review his own resume as he addresses all the key components to a successful resume. This review is especially useful since Apple is a leading recruiter in the field of supply chain and has 2 decades of experience reviewing resumes. He has seen it all.

Accurate Contact info:

This may sound super obvious, but according to Apple, a lot of people just put their initials. Why would you do that? This resume is literally packaging your personal brand. Your contact information needs to be thorough and accurate. This also helps when searching for your name in databases. The digital age has brought about tools like applicant tracking systems which parse your information into batches. The more information you provide, the better able recruiters are to search your information.

Ensure that your phone number and email address are also current. You would be surprised how often people forget to update this information. It would be a safe bet that including inaccurate contact information will result in your losing out on opportunities. No employer will want to take a shot on someone who can’t get this most basic information correct, no matter how qualified you may be.

As for the street address, there is a lot of debate as to whether to include this super specific information. At the very least, you should include the city and state where you are applying for the position. The age of increased remote work has marginalized this point a bit, but some jobs can’t be worked remotely. In that case, if you are not living in the city and state where you are applying for the position, it's okay to use a friend or relative’s address so that your resume isn’t discounted outright. But again, a lot of jobs can be worked from anywhere, so this information can remain fluid. At the very least, include a city and zip code so that you're able to be properly searched and found in these databases.

Don’t forget to include a link to your LinkedIn profile as well.

Format

Make sure your resume is easy to scan. Showcase everything that you’re about, including your skills summary. Recruiters want to be able to easily identify your strengths and skills. Use keywords that are popularly searched so that recruiters who are looking for very specific skill sets can be easily found.

Value

What value do you bring to any employer? Every employer needs to not only view your experience and your skills, but also your value proposition. What is your key differentiator? How are you valuable? You demonstrate this with quantifiable metrics that people viewing your resume can easily see. For instance, don’t just say you sold widgets for X company for 5 years. Show us how many  widgets you sold and how you grew the business. Your resume shouldn’t be just a list of duties. It should be a catalog of how you have quantifiably improved business.

Memberships

Listing out your association memberships or any other extracurricular intangibles shows an added investment into your career goals. It also increases the visibility of your personal brand while also demonstrating a heightened potential for increasing the brand of your potential employer. This can go along with your power branding statement along with your skills and competencies that are laid out around the type of position you’re applying to.

Honesty is the only policy

Don’t lie on your resume or try and stretch the truth. There are sophisticated background check tools that can very easily corroborate what you’re putting on your resume. Recruiters use these tools to perform background checks on candidates that they’re sourcing. Your integrity is always on the line during a job search so no need to risk it.