By One of the most common New Year’s resolutions among youngsters and adults is securing or switching their jobs. However, most of them are unable to keep up with tier resolutions. It’s almost the end of the year, and many peers are still searching for a job. A lot of peers possess all the required skills and qualifications, but they are still unable to secure their desired job roles. However, this is primarily due to their improper and unprofessional CV`s, which are not optimised for the Applicant Tracking System (ATS). Let’s aim to secure your dream job in 2026. However, to achieve this goal, it is crucial to dedicate the remaining year to working towards it.
Are you also facing the same issue? No worries! We’ve got your back!
In this blog, we will guide you on how to craft compelling resumes, ensuring your job placement in 2026.
So what are you waiting for? Let’s dive into it!
Why Does Your Resume Not Stand Out?
Before we discuss how to make resumes stand out in 2026, it is vital to understand why they fail to make an impression on hiring managers.
The following are some key reasons why your CV doesn’t stand out from the crowd:
- Poor Readability: Firstly, one of the most common reasons is not taking care of the readability. Many peers use colours and fonts that only look attractive, but they lack clarity. As a result, their CV`s are rejected even if they have all the required skills. Additionally, many applicants use poor formatting in their resumes, giving their resumes a cluttered look.
- Not Tailoring Resumes: Besides that, many candidates often make a generic CV, and instead of tailoring it to every job description, they send it for every job position. Due to this, their resumes are directly rejected.
- Focusing on Responsibilities Instead of Achievements: Additionally, some job seekers focus only on bragging about their responsibilities and not their achievements. They make their resumes tell the hiring managers what roles they played in their previous jobs, but don’t share how they took that responsibility and what the impact of it was. This is why they are unable to convince the hiring managers to consider them as a potential candidate, leading to their rejection.
- Not Optimising Resumes for ATS: Apart from this, another common reason is not making their resumes ATS-friendly. This is because a majority of job seekers are unaware of this tracking system. As a result, they fail to pass this system and end up getting rejected.
How to Make Your Resume Stand Out in 2026?
Now, you must have a clear understanding of the reasons why your CV`s have been rejected till now. Now, let’s understand how to ensure that your resume stands out from the crowd and helps you secure your dream job in 2026.
- Understand the Requirements of the Role: One of the most vital things to do is to have a proper understanding of the requirements of the role. Ensure that you have all the required skills, qualifications, and experience. However, if you lack some basic skills and the deadline for applying is not so close, you can actually learn that skill in 2 to 3 days. For instance, if the role requires you to be able to use a pivot table in Excel, you can watch online videos or seek assistance from an expert to learn how to use a pivot table. This will help you become the most potential candidate.
- Tailor your Resume to the Job Description: In addition, it is vital to tailor your CV to the job description. Even if you are applying to only one field. Hiring managers of each organisation often have different requirements for the potential candidate. For instance, for a content writing role, some hiring managers may require you to have proficiency in AI skills, while others may not. Therefore, it is essential to read the description thoroughly and tailor your CV to it.
- Focus More on Achievements Rather Than Responsibilities: Moreover, focus on stating your achievements instead of telling about your responsibilities. Hiring managers don’t want to know what roles were assigned to you in your internship or previous ob roles. Rather, they want you to tell them how you achieve the desired outcome in that role and what the impact of that role was on the organisation. For instance, as a social media manager, you can describe your achievement like, “Increased 45% Instagram followers in half a year, resulting in a 30% boost in lead generation.”
- Use Professional Templates and Neutral Colour Palettes: Furthermore, use professional templates to make your resume look well-organised. Additionally, use a neutral colour palette and standard fonts to ensure that the hiring manager clearly understands the content of your resume. For instance, you can use a reverse chronological template. Moreover, use fonts like Calibri, Arial, and Times New Roman, along with neutral colours to enhance the readability of your CV.
- Make it ATS-Friendly: Most importantly, due to the immense popularity of ATS CV scanners, it is crucial to ensure that your resume is ATS-friendly. However, to make it ATS-friendly, it is vital to use relevant keywords and skills. For that, reread the job description carefully and determine the core skills needed for that job. Additionally, add the job title from the job description to your resume.
- Proofread and Edit: Lastly, proofread your resume and edit all the major to minor errors in it to enhance its credibility and give it a professional touch. However, if you want to know if your resume meets the high standards of the job market, you can seek resume writing help from professionals. These experts not only help peers with writing their resumes, but also provide proofreading and editing services.
Final words!
All in all, if you are not in a hurry to secure the job, you can spend the remaining days of 2025 learning some essential skills that might be helpful for your career as well as your personal growth. This will help you take a productive start in 2026 and enable your resume to stand out from our competitors.
This brings us to the end of our blog!
We hope that this blog will help you secure your dream job by crafting top-notch resumes.
