one of the biggest issues with resume tips from the internet is that most of it is subjective what works for me might not work for you and vice versa so when austin belsack released his findings from analyzing 125 484 resumes i got excited because data to a large extent takes the guesswork out of the equation in my opinion his findings are pure gold because it basically confirmed my suspicions that in order to write an incredible resume there are some proven foundational principles we should follow whether we're making a resume for our first job or improving upon a good resume we've had for years as usual i care about your time so i'm going to share the five key learnings up front then talk about the implications of the study and end with practical resume writing tips you can use immediately to stand out so let's get started hi friends welcome back to the channel if you're new here my name is jeff and we're all about practical career interview and productivity tips if you're working professional consider subscribing for more actionable content full disclosure austin did not ask me to make this video he doesn't even know who i am the data geek and me just got so excited about all the numbers that i just had to share it in a video format without further ado the five key learnings from austin's study number one resumes with a linkedin profile see higher interview rates but only 48 of resumes included a linkedin profile number two candidates only included 51 of important keywords and skills heavily under indexing on soft skills number three measurable metrics improve resume outcomes but only 26 percent of resumes included five or more metrics number four research shows that the ideal resume length is 475 to 600 words 77 of resumes fell outside of that range and number five fluffy content takes away from a resume's value but 51 of resumes included buzzwords cliches or incorrect pronouns i'm gonna link the original article and all other resources i mentioned down in the description below so feel free to check that out if you want more perspective on how to write great resumes now you know the key takeaways what does this actually mean for you let's start with number one including a linkedin profile on your resume and here's a graph that completely blew me away at first glance the implication seems to be pretty simple having a linkedin profile linked on your resume gives you a much higher chance of landing a job interview but if you take a closer look having a bare bones or basic linkedin profile actually decreases your chances of getting a callback meaning you're better off hiding your linkedin profile if you're not putting any effort into it in my opinion the differences between a comprehensive profile and a basic one boiled down to number one having a professional headshot and linkedin banner number two how informative your work detail section is and number three how much effort you put into building meaningful connections i actually have a linkedin tips and tricks playlist that walks you through all those points and also share how to get a custom linkedin url to put on your resume so that it looks clean make sure to check that out after this video and that's not all you might also notice that as job level increased the gap in callback rates decreased between job applicants this suggests that having a strong linkedin profile is more important for entry level job seekers compared to their higher level peers if you're finding this video helpful so far please drop a like and if not keep watching because it only gets better number two including the right keywords and skills when writing a resume or cv while i'm not a big fan of just submitting applications online it is a fact of life that applicant tracking systems scan for certain keywords and experiences to filter out what they define as low potential candidates according to the research the average job description includes 43 keywords but most candidates only match 51 on their resume meaning they only included 20 or so relevant keywords in order to overcome this you want to use free online word cloud tools i'll link a few down below copy and paste the job description in there and identify the keywords that pop up most frequently and make sure to include those in a natural way when writing your resume furthermore we see that candidates resumes included 60 of the necessary hard skills and only 28 of the necessary soft skills when compared to their target roles job description this makes sense because there's usually a skill slash interest section at the bottom of your resume where you highlight your capabilities in excel python sql the hard skills right to make sure you're also including relevant soft skills you can take a look at udemy's workplace trends report or cnbc summary and see which of the top 10 in-demand soft skills are applicable to you and include those as well number three include measurable results in your bullet points the study shows that 26 resumes included five or more instances of measurable metrics while 36 more than a third didn't include a single quantifiable result why do companies prefer resumes with metrics because metrics make value easier to understand and quantify i cannot stress this enough if 10 candidates all say they're responsible for planning and executing social media campaigns it's very hard to tell who did it well and who didn't the one person that says hey my campaigns drove 30 year year increase in sales revenue is gonna stand out there's a popular xyz resume bullet point formula that goes like this accomplish x as measured by y by doing z for example if you're a content marketing manager your bullet point might look like this drove 2500 organic signups to our monthly newsletter by a b testing content layout and collaborating with co-marketing partners representing a 43 quarter on quarter increase pro tip a lot of you might be working on projects that might not have a direct impact on growth or revenue let's say you're working on your company's internal tools in that case you can say your improvements led to a 33 increase in productivity for the sales team which translates to x amount of incremental revenue number four keep your resume length between 475 and 600 words a this is because the research has shown that resumes in that sweet spot saw double the interviews of those that were outside of those ranges b 77 of the resumes from austin's study had either fewer than 475 words or more than 600 meaning from a purely statistical standpoint you are automatically in a stronger position versus other candidates if you have a 500 word resume of course i do want to point out there are definitely exceptions when it comes to career level and academic roles if you're a professor federal employee or c-level executive you might have a 2-3 page resume or cv with well over 1 500 words and that's perfectly fine for those of you who do not fall in that category though this finding means that number one do not keyword stuff your resume it's not about the number of keywords you have in your resume right it's about having the ones that match the job and of course number two something a lot of us have been doing since middle school using the word count tool in word or google docs to make sure we're staying within that sweet spot and number five the bane of all recruiters hiring managers and just resume readers in general buzzwords and cliches do not use them we're all super motivated by our passions we're all detail-oriented team players we all have creative mindsets and who doesn't like to talk about the synergies between different products if you found that hard to listen to imagine the recruiter going over 30 resumes a day and according to the study 51 of resumes in the data set included some sort of buzzword or cliche buzzwords fluff cliches are unnecessary and take away from your message your writing should always be selling your experience not summarizing it as a very practical solution go ahead and google resume cliches and buzzwords and remove all the ones you find in your resume to give it an instant upgrade were some of the findings from austin study pretty basic yeah you should always include measurable results in your bullet points optimize and add your linkedin profile and avoid using buzzwords to write a good resume but hopefully the numbers behind the research have convinced you that these non-negotiable aspects lay very solid groundwork for you to make additional tweaks and adjustments i've actually made quite a few of these mistakes myself back in the day so make sure to check out my video on the top five resume mistakes i made when applying to management consulting and google see you on the next video in the meantime have a great one