Many New Year’s resolutions involved career matters, and it’s common to dust off your résumé at this time of year. Well, now it’s mid-March, have you taken a look at it? Does it need updating? Does it include your most recent position? Does it include categories and formatting commonly seen on résumés today? What follows will give you some insights into how a certified résumé writer reviews a résumé.
Summary section… Objective statements are very passé. Nowadays, your résumé should start with a branding statement (which can be in the form of a sentence or a headline with a possible sub-headline when appropriate) that leads off a summary paragraph and a keyword-rich list of core competencies and strengths. The summary paragraph should be no longer than 5-6 lines or else you begin to lose the reader’s interest, and it should be personalized so that it describes you.
Opponents of résumé summaries say that they are too generic and a waste of space. The goal is to lead off with a strong branding statement/value proposition followed by a summary of your unique background and strengths. If the summary paragraph could be pulled from one résumé and pasted on top of the résumé of a similar professional, then it’s not personalized enough. Including the list of core competencies helps your résumé when searches are entered into applicant tracking systems for particular skills.
Job entries… It’s important to differentiate between responsibilities and what you were tasked with doing, from your accomplishments and achievements so that what you want to highlight can stand out. When the reader’s eye scans down the résumé, too many bullets will make them incomprehensible. Often times, they are not all “bullet-worthy.” Items that describe your responsibilities, the situation you stepped into, your areas of responsibility do not require a bullet. You can group them into a paragraph format and then reserve the bullets for true accomplishments or statements that show how well you performed in your role.
Quantifying everything that can be quantified will strengthen your job descriptions and accomplishments. Read through your bullets and ask yourself follow up questions about how many or how much or over what period of time. Quantify, quantify, quantify!
Early Career… Once you’ve been working 15 years or more, initial roles from earlier in your career can be minimized. Your résumé is first and foremost a marketing document. It does not need to include every detail of your career. In most situations, the work you did 12-15 years ago (or more) in these roles is not as relevant as your work in more recent years. There are ways to summarize and include your earlier roles with less detail.
Other categories to consider…
Continuing development – classes, seminars, conferences
Community involvement or volunteer activities
Memberships or leadership roles in professional associations
Software skills (with the caveat that once you’re at a certain level professionally, then focus on specific software to your industry, not necessarily Word and Excel)
Format… While content is king, formatting is eye-catching and an important part of the equation, and boy, have résumé formats changed! If you haven’t updated your résumé in a couple of years, it’s most likely time to take your format up a notch or two. That said, please steer away from Microsoft templates as they shout “cookie cutter” and will do absolutely nothing to help you stand out in the applicant pool.
So there’s an insider’s approach on how to assess whether your résumé could benefit from an update. Making the improvements may be something you want to handle yourself with a little research and elbow grease, or it may be smart to partner with a certified résumé writer for the professional touch. Either way, it’s critical that your résumé be up to par for a 2012 job search.