If you’ve decided 2023 is the year that you’re finally going to change your career or go after that promotion you’ve wanted for a long time, you must update or create a resume that gets noticed for all the right reasons. Many people don’t understand the best ways of doing this, though, and are disadvantaged.

Read on for some ways to develop the best CV possible in the coming months to help you get much better results when applying for your dream jobs.

Get the Layout Right

For starters, ensure you use a layout for your resume that works well. You want to set up the information in your CV so that it’s easy for recruiters or other hiring managers to scan through quickly. People in charge of hiring staff members are busy and often have to look through dozens or potentially hundreds of resumes each day. They don’t have time to go through every single word carefully. They must instead scan documents to be more productive and use this technique to whittle candidates down to a smaller number.

To make your CV scannable, use lots of headings and subheadings and break blocks of text up into shorter chunks. Bullet points and other demarcations help, too, as does using an easy-to-read font such as Times New Roman, Arial, or Calibri. Choose a font size that’s big enough that people can read without having to squint and leave enough white space on each page so that the document doesn’t look too cluttered and visually overwhelming.

Also, avoid lots of color, graphics, or other unnecessary gimmicks that typically look unprofessional rather than grabbing attention for the right reasons.

Include Specific Information That’s Also Tailored Appropriately

To have the best chance of getting good results with your CV, you need to include plenty of specific details and tailor the information appropriately to the jobs you’re going after. To do this, read over the advertisement for the role a few times to get a good idea of what the recruiters are focused on finding in candidates and then try to use details that best suit this.

Use examples of your achievements and training over the years that demonstrate how you can add to a team in a quantifiable way. Add in some of the keywords mentioned in the advertisement so if hiring managers use applicant tracking software to narrow down candidates, you will remain in the race.

If you want to become a pharmacy technician, for instance, and the job advertisement mentioned knowing specific software programs, be sure to mention these. If you’re going after a role as a lawyer, you might also mention the number of billable hours you achieved in a period for your current or last role or the number of new clients landed.

If you previously managed a retail store, you could talk about the percentage by which you improved sales or how you managed to cut costs and improve profits, and by what number. The more detailed the information is and the more it’s tailored to the advertised position, the higher your chances are of standing out from other candidates. You’ll have more impact with your resume if you can show the results you can achieve rather than merely mentioning vague skills or knowledge.

Also, don’t forget to research the firms you want to work for to learn about the people running the business, its history, culture, and so on. Use what you learn to help you show recruiters in your CV that you not only have the needed experience to do the job but the right type of personality and other traits to fit into the team and work with others to achieve success.

Fix Errors Before You Send

The next thing you need to do that many people looking for a new job don’t focus on enough is spotting errors in your document before you send it off to recruiters. Carefully proofread each page to pick up on typos, missing or doubled-up words, spelling and grammatical errors, less-than-ideal word choices, vague language, etc.

It can be hard to pick up on every issue when we’ve written things ourselves and know what we expect to see, so it pays to print your CV out or convert it into a different colored font while you edit to help you spot things you wouldn’t otherwise. If possible, though, give your document to a trusted friend, family member, or colleague to proofread for you.

Ask them to be on the lookout for other issues, too, such as sentences that don’t make sense, spacing or font discrepancies, or other layout inconsistencies.

If you follow each of the three steps listed above, your resume will be much more solid and give you a better chance of landing that new job you really want.