A good resume might get read, but a great resume will get you an interview. So, how do you turn a good resume into a great one?
Over the last 30 years, MPI’s expert mining industry recruiters have seen every kind of resume there is—so we know what sets a great one apart from an average one.
What follows is a list of top resume tips, compiled by our team, for anyone looking for a job in the mining industry in Australia, at any level.
Getting the basics of your mining resume right
Here are a few quick tips on creating a winning resume:
- Your front page is a selling page and needs to highlight all your qualifications, experience and skills relevant to the role
- Only include the information that adds value to your application. (The last 10 to 15 years for those with significant work history. For those with less it’s acceptable to go back 10 years)
- Use bolded headings to ensure key information is easy to find.
READ MORE: 9 things NOT to include on your resume
What kinds of headings should I include on my resume?
What should those headings look like and what should you include under them? Here’s what our expert mining industry recruiters had to say:
Contact Information
Today, with most people applying via a login or email, it can be easy to assume that the company will have access to your email address. However, this may not be the case.
It is better to ensure your phone details and email address are included on your resume.
Pro tip: Check your contact details are included and correct.
READ MORE: 8 tips to ensure a successful mining job application
Career Summary / Executive Summary / Career Objective (for graduates)
The objective of this summary is to hook the reader in, to keep them reading. Keep it to three or four short sentences.
But what should those sentences say?
- State your job title or profession
- Include two or three key points about why you are suited to the role
- Summarise your years of experience.
Pro tip: This is not where you describe your career in detail from beginning to the present day.
Education and Qualifications
You only need to include the highest level attained in the specific field of study. (Once you have professional work experience, your primary and secondary education is irrelevant.)
Pro tip: There’s no need to include certificate-level qualifications if you have a diploma in the same study area.
Achievements
Including achievements is a great opportunity to highlight your capabilities and what you offer to a company.
Pro tip: Try to quantify (as much as is possible) the tangible gains that came from your contribution to the overall achievement.
READ MORE: 10 things mining recruiters want to see on a resume
Key Skills and Attributes or Key Capabilities
This is the space to really highlight what you can offer to the role and the company. This is not the space to list all your skills, but rather it’s the space to list your key capabilities that relate to the role.
This section is often overlooked by jobseekers, yet providing a list of six to eight key skills could make all the difference in a review of applicants.
Pro tip: It’s important to ensure you can provide tangible examples of times you have used these skills, as they may come up in an interview.
Employment History
This one might seem straightforward but it’s actually the part of the resume where errors are most often made.
Crosscheck your employment dates! We regularly ask people in interviews to confirm employment dates because the years are incorrect, the jobs cross over, or there are gaps in employment history.
Pro tip: Don’t fill in gaps by extending dates a few months here and there. When a recruiter catches these (and we usually do) it creates a very bad impression. If you are not a detailed kind of person, get someone else to do this for you.
READ MORE: How to handle gaps in your employment history on your resume
The first impression matters
It is important to remember that your resume is often the first impression a company or recruiter has of you as an applicant, so spend some time on your resume to ensure you create a good first impression.
Pro tip: Make sure you know the content of your resume and can comment on each of the sections within it, and the various jobs you’ve had.
Writing a resume is a task worth taking the time to do well. It can be the key to unlocking a great future and securing a fantastic mining industry job.
No matter what your mining skill set, MPI will have the perfect job for you. Register with us here. We have been mining industry recruitment specialists for almost 30 years.