The pandemic brought on an air of insecurity and uncertainty across the world as people struggled to come to terms with the new reality. Suddenly, nothing was the same as it used to be. People were required to stay at home and maintain a distance from everyone else. The pandemic propelled the world into a virtual and remote landscape where work, communication, and even socializing were confined to online spaces.  As a result, businesses had no choice but to lay off a large chunk of their workforce or reduce work hours. In 2020 alone, an estimated 114 million people lost their jobs. This resulted in a working-hour-reduction that was four times more serious than it was during the financial crisis of 2008. Millions of people had to change the course of their career and shift to a completely different industry just to make it through the pandemic. Many fresh graduates and terminated employees also moved toward entrepreneurial ventures just to stay afloat. Those who were still employed had to master new skills to adapt to the remote work model. Now, as the economy reels from the aftermath of the pandemic, many are returning to their old jobs or looking for new ones. Many are also dealing with career shifts and looking for new and better opportunities. Only those who managed to persevere through the pandemic can find their footing in the post-pandemic world. If you’re looking for a job, your resume should reflect the skills and abilities you gained and polished during this time. Keep reading to learn all about what your post-pandemic resume should look like.

Justify Your Career Change

If the pandemic made you realize that your potential lies in another field or industry, you may want to consider a career change. To that end, your resume should reflect why you made this decision and what makes you capable of taking on a new role. You can do this by adding specific skills that make you qualified for the change. Another way of doing this is to highlight a particular aspect of your job that is related to the new career that you’re going for. For example, if you’re looking for ways to transition into a sales role and your current role is only 5% sales related, you should make sure to highlight this 5% in your resume.

Add New Sections

If you’re one of those people who couldn’t find a job during the pandemic or were terminated during this time, your resume will have a gap that you need to fill effectively. You can do this by talking about all the things you did during the pandemic when you weren’t working. If you were retained but your company had to be downsized, your job description may have changed. You may have taken on more responsibilities during this time that you can add to your resume. This is a great opportunity to let recruiters know about all the extra things and special projects you undertook during the pandemic that make you more dynamic and qualified.

Quantify Your Achievements

One of the best ways to engage a recruiter is to effectively quantify your achievements. Simply saying that you did something during a job is not as effective as stating exactly what you achieved during this time. So if you’re listing a project you did for a company, you should add how that project added quantifiable value to the company. For example, if you were leading a project to incorporate ERP in your company, you should quantify the increase in efficiency that the ERP led to or the ROI of the project. If you were given a special sales project, you can talk about the increase in profitability for the company. This will help the employers get an accurate understanding of your role in the project while also understanding what exactly you’re capable of achieving. If you can’t quote an exact number for the things you achieved in your job, you can also use words such as improved, increased, and decreased to describe the exact change you achieved.

Show Your Productivity

As most workplaces shifted to a work-from-home model during the pandemic, many employees also developed self-management skills and autonomy. To that end, they required much less oversight and demonstrated higher productivity on their own. You can also add this to your resume by talking about how your productivity increased during this time and how you were able to manage your work effectively. For example, if you’re a customer service executive, you can talk about the increase in the number of queries that you answer in a day. You can even quantify this claim and show the percentage of improvement from the past year.

Update Your Education and Pandemic-Related Skills

The pandemic was an excellent time to polish skills, learn new things, and join virtual networks for self-improvement. Many people also did volunteer work during this time to add more skills to their resume. If you did any of these things, you should consider adding them to your resume. Any certification, online course, volunteer work, or additional skill will make you a better candidate for the hiring team. This will show them that you actively take initiative to improve yourself and grow in your career. Additionally, you should consider adding pandemic-related skills to your resume as well. These can include managing a virtual team, completing online projects, and anything that you did during the pandemic.

Looking for a Professional Resume Writing Services? Resu Consulting Can Help

If you want to advance your career in the post-pandemic landscape, you should invest in quality resume writing services. A seasoned professional can review your resume, identify gaps, and develop an excellent summary of your capabilities. They can also ensure that it automatically grabs the employer’s attention. If you’re looking for affordable and high-quality online resume writing services, Resu Consulting is your best bet. Our process includes collaborating with our clients and developing a unique and compelling resume that immediately grabs the recruiters’ attention. We are one of the best resume writing services based in Manassas, VA, with qualified experts who can develop winning resumes that break the clutter. Our experts are also adept at providing career coaching, resume template design, cover letter writing services and other services to clients looking for career advancement and growth. Get in touch with our professionals today and schedule a free consultation to begin your journey to success!