What is the essence of a personal statement in a resume? Apparently, many applicants tend to say a personal statement is the most challenging part of the whole resume, and others claim it is the most time-consuming one and those who don’t find it complicated at all probably do not pay enough attention to this initial part. Of course, different institutions and professional areas may have their own specific requirements for personal statements, most arguments correlate.
Anyway, this is not the section to overlook or underrate, and here’s why.
- If formulated concisely and confidently, it serves as a quick and truly efficient self-presentation which in the meanwhile outlines your own career goals and demonstrates the compatibility with the chosen company;
- The way you present yourself to the employer eventually can play into your hands more than enumerating plain facts about your job history and acquired certificates;
- It’s the most personalized and subjective section of your resume so take advantage of it. Surely, the last thing you would want your recruiter to do is to find your personal statement humdrum or too generic and thus undermine the overall impression of a worthy candidate that you most likely are.
How to Create A Statement That Works With A Smart Resume Builder
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To make the most out of your personal statement, today, we have specifically selected the list of top personal statement recommendations and anti-trends. Here they are.
Starting with the crucial DOs
- Do not hesitate to personalize your statement.
Although you may still base your statement’s structure on a boilerplate, make sure
you conveyed a clear idea of why this position is the right choice for you. One way to manifest the consistency of your decision is to draw a paragraph briefly enumerating several specific points that attracted you specifically to the chosen position.
Being personal instead of generic and explaining your genuine interest as well as giving a short background story is a beneficial option, too. To prove your awareness of the company’s mission and features, do not hesitate to browse its website yet avoid quoting it too much.
The bottom line is, show the relevance of your professional skills and personality traits to the vacancy on offer and do this in a well-structured and concise way.
- Find the balance between being succinct and detailed.
This might be a bit difficult, especially if you have a lot of related experience, past duties, and actual career goals and achievements to describe. Yet, to cut the surplus, put yourself in a recruiter’s place who does not know the applicant at all, and sincerely ask yourself: do these features and traits really matter for the company and contribute to the ideal candidate’s profile?
A good piece of advice here is to give the most related examples instead of providing a stolen set of basic phrases.
- You have the right to mildly brag about your achievements and objectives. Those who are always “too shy” should probably carve it in stone – outlining your strong points and bragging are not the same thing. So, balancing your tone and avoiding sounding too casual or pretentious is already half the deal.
Take time to remember your accomplishments and those particular moments when you managed to overcome difficulties and accept challenges, be it a part of your previous job experiences or even not strictly related to your past careers. This will add a pinch of proper self-esteem and show the recruiter your ability to analyze your efforts and deeds right.
Optimally, list those qualities of yours that respond to the vacancy’s description and prompt at a maximum and push back your weaker or unrelated points – at least for the resume.
- Do follow the word limit and correspond the info given with the job directions. The reasons for it are quite evident: first, imagine how many resumes may pass daily before the tired eyes of a top company’s HR. Make conciseness and clarity your secret power!
Before proceeding to tell your exciting history of self-formation, make sure it will fit into a couple of pages (this should be the maximum). Adhere your autobiographical details and professional capabilities to those implied by the position as much as you can yet stay true to yourself and your future employer.
It’s ultimately in your self-interest to demonstrate your respect for the HR specialist’s time and the company’s principles and requirements.
The Essential DON’Ts
Let us consider a list of things that should not happen to end up on your personal statement:
- Don’t criticize or put down your skills and abilities.
Even though you might not have years of related experience behind and be aware of your weaknesses too well, your genuine willingness and interest in this job, as well as your personal characteristics, may still put you close to the perfect candidate. For instance, to avoid openly mentioning the lack of experience, concentrate on showing that you’re well-informed, properly educated, and eager to learn new things.
Briefly drafting your professional interests and future career goals can turn into an efficient strategy.
- Don’t base your resume mostly on quotes, clichés, and templates.
This is particularly the case for a personal statement – the part meant to present you as a most suitable candidate behind whom stands a broad-minded personality.
Provide personalized references and examples to enhance the persuasiveness of your resume instead of borrowing it all from templates.
- Don’t structure your personal statement as a plain narrative repeating the resume.
It is the right choice to rely on the facts described in the resume, yet it’s crucial to show how you are capable of analyzing these things and converting them into a decent statement that summarizes this information and thus helps you stand out as a candidate.
The concept of interconnection between your abilities, experiences, and choices is expected to be read between the lines.
- Don’t be careless and take time to build a statement that works.
Underestimating the time required to make a personal statement, as well as the whole resume, typically leads to blunders and casualties such as misspelling the company’s name, mentioning the wrong features, misrepresentation of your strengths, and thus downgrades the overall impression.
Never make your personal statement and the whole resume a last moment’s task.
- Don’t finish and submit your personal statement without having it revised by someone else for grammar, spelling, punctuation, and general clarity.
Even though you might not have a career advisor living next door, do not worry: your family member, friend, or colleague knowing you well will bring a pair of fresh eyes to the checking process and will probably come up with good advice. Reviewing your grammar, orthography, punctuation, writing style are those crucial final steps before proceeding to submit the resume.
Yet do not count on another person to write the whole resume for you since the HR specialists are trained enough to sniff the forgery.
Takeaway
Summing it up, to get the full benefit out of your resume, make the HRs hear your own words, not someone else’s, and make these words sound convincing. We hope this article helped you draft a basic notion of what a worthy personal statement looks like: share your best and worst resume experiences with us in the comments section below.
