A recruiter at a mid-sized Lagos firm will open somewhere between two and four hundred applications for a single graduate role. They are not reading your resume. They are scanning it for about seven seconds looking for a reason to move on. Your job is to remove every reason.
Before that happens, many large employers run your file through applicant tracking software that reads the text and scores it against the job description. If your resume is a designed PDF full of columns, icons and text boxes, the software may read it as gibberish and score you at zero. You never hear back, and you assume you were not good enough.
Cut these four things today
- Your photograph. It is not standard practice outside a handful of fields, and it introduces bias you gain nothing from.
- Date of birth, marital status, state of origin and religion. None of it is relevant, and some of it invites discrimination.
- The objective statement. "Seeking a challenging position in a reputable organisation" tells a recruiter nothing and burns your most valuable line.
- References available on request. Everybody knows. Use the space for something real.
Write results, not responsibilities
The single biggest difference between a resume that gets a call and one that does not is whether the bullets describe duties or outcomes. Almost everyone writes duties.
Responsible for managing the company social media accounts.
Grew the company Instagram from 400 to 6,200 followers in eight months, which brought in about 30 enquiries a month.
The second version is the same job. The difference is that it contains a number, a timeframe and a result. If you genuinely have no numbers, use scale instead: how many people, how many files, how many branches, how often.
Mirror the job description
- Open the job posting next to your resume.
- Highlight every skill and tool it names, in the exact words it uses.
- Make sure those exact words appear in your resume where they are true. If the posting says "cost estimation" do not write "costing".
- Never claim a skill you do not have. It falls apart in the interview and you have burnt the company.
Save it right
Export as PDF unless the posting specifically asks for Word. Name the file with your own name, not "resume final final2". A recruiter downloading three hundred files will thank you, and yours will be findable later when a different role opens.