By Jacqui Barrett-Poindexter
Maintaining an updated resume – or, transforming it — in this rapidly changing career environment is imperative at any time, and particularly now, when the buyers’ market prevails. Ensuring your value shines and each career assertion resonates with your target company’s needs and showing how you solve their pain is important to inspire interviews.
In light of this, I recently answered the following question on Quora: How Often Should a Resume Be Updated?
The reality is that some careerists are so immersed in their roles that physically updating their resume in a meaningful, regular way is a huge challenge. I’d recommend, at the least, keeping a running log — this could be a printed or virtual document where you jot down job wins/challenges/metrics regularly (weekly/monthly) to ensure that when you are ready to ‘update’ your resume (every 6 months or even once every year or so) you are equipped.
As well, my experience has shown that even a couple of years in a new role and/or career direction may compel a resume strategy ‘rewrite.’ What may be thought of simply as an update then becomes a newly strategized career story — this is based on a number of factors, usually the greatest of which are YOUR career goals and direction you wish to steer your career have shifted, often dramatically.
My final suggestion is: be VERY CLEAR on your 3-5 key areas of value YOU offer and be equally clear on the type of company (small, mid-sized, large, Fortune 500, etc.), company culture, specific type of position/job/role and then all you need to do is maintain one focused resume that will attract your career opportunities. Taking a stand and being crystal clear on your goals will eradicate the communication clutter that erupts when you try to maintain multiple resumes focused on diverse targets.
Zeroing in on your goals every 6 months, year or so and reevaluating your single resume strategy will propel your career to new levels!
I wrote a post on Resume Updates that you may find helpful, here: Nipped and Tucked Resumes.
Jacqui, I love the career management advice you gave re: a running log of wins. I am however a bit curious re: your advice re: a single focused resume.
The advice I’ve been hearing uniformly says to customize a resume for a job posting–but I’m an active candidate. Should I understand your statement as being geared towards the passive candidate?
Hello Ed,
That’s a fair question. I hear that recurring advice, too, and that’s part and parcel why I brought the idea of a ‘single, targeted resume’ into the post. i really think folks get too caught up in the ‘customizing a resume for each position’ grip.
In my experience, for both active and passive candidates, taking a ‘stand’ on a target goal and really zeroing in on a target audience: types of companies that share certain, related qualities; types of positions with a plethora of cross-over talent requirements, will lead to a resume that performs, over and over again with very little modification.
That said, with pithy, ‘mobile’ headlines and sub-headlines that can be adjusted and re-fit from time to time to meet the nuanced needs of various positions as well as a few swap-out achievements and/or other key language, a candidate can be nimble in making slight variations when submitting for various opportunities.
Point being, though, to focus as tight as possible on your value related to a targeted goal that facilitates a meaningful, solid story that speaks to a well refined audience (over and over again).
Make sense?
Jacqui
Jacqui, thanks for the thorough answer. What you say makes a great deal of sense, in fact. That the resume should be a tool in a search process that is narrowly focused and that radical customization shouldn’t be necessary is reassuring to hear.
Thanks again, Jacqui!
Jacqui,
Once again, you offer solid, actionable advice. Developing the habit of the “running log” is just like developing the habit of flossing. Once you get into it, you automatically do it. That’s a habit you want to keep and one that is transferrable to other areas of one’s life. Things such as workshops, academic studies and speaking engagements.
Long-term unemployment or frustrated job search efforts can shroud one’s ability to see their own value. The running log is one tool that can help uncover the “wins”.
Great analogy, Marianna! … dental flossing (a developed habit, indeed), which is not always ‘fun’ to do, but rewarding and beneficial to one’s dental health. And absolutely, this is akin to the career ‘health’ we can derive by maintaining a running log! Good point about this log transferring to other aspects, beyond the traditional ‘career/job.’
Thanks, once again, for adding value here!
Jacqui
Hi Jacqui, thanks for the post! Updating your resume is always important, particularly if you’re in the middle of a job search. If any of your information changes, you should definitely update your resume. You never now when you may need a recent version to give someone. This is why you should always be prepared. Letting your resume get too out-of-date could significantly hinder you. I particularly like your idea to jot down information about what you’ve done and then update your resume later.