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Whether you’ve been driving a forklift for two months or 20 years, when you’re looking for a new job, you need a resume that showcases your training and experience. A resume is your ticket to landing an interview. Without one — or without a good one — you’ll never get the chance to show someone what you can do.

Start with Your Skills

Hiring managers receive lots of resumes. They don’t have time to hunt through your work history to see whether or not you have the experience they need. Instead, they’re going to look for a “skills” section, hopefully at the very top of your resume. This is your opportunity to address the long list of “responsibilities” and “qualifications” listed in their job ad. Take the time to tailor this section for each position, and specifically, list skills that they are looking for.

Don’t worry about providing extensive details in this section. That can happen later, in your work experience section. This is just the highlights, so the hiring manager will read more.

Add Details to Your Work Experience

Working as a forklift operator involves more than just moving levers around, but if you don’t provide enough details in your job history section, that’s what the person reading your resume is going to assume you did all day. Start by describing what your key tasks were, but then think about everything you did on the job outside of operating the equipment. Were you responsible for any paperwork? Did you do quality checks? Did you maintain daily counts? List all of those extra responsibilities.

Beyond your day-to-day responsibilities, make sure to capture anything extra you might have done. Did you manage or mentor anyone? Did you provide on-the-job training? Did you receive any commendations or awards? Did you improve production times or optimize any plant procedures? If so, make sure to include those details, too.

Proofread

Nobody expects you to be a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer, but having a resume full of typos tells the hiring manager that you didn’t take the time to review your work before submitting it. That doesn’t bode well for your on-the-job performance. If your spelling is atrocious, ask someone to review your resume before you turn it in. And don’t just rely on Word to catch your spelling mistakes. As far as it’s concerned, you may well have worked “too” hours every day, instead of two.

If you have questions about your resume, or need someone to offer advice or look it over for you, contact an Action Group Staffing Specialist today.

 


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