Update Your Resume

Today your resume is one of the most powerful tools that you have in your arsenal when applying for a job. Each industry has a certain level of expectations when it comes to format and the flow of information that is contained within your resume. There are many tools available more so than just your word processor. While your world processor has some very useful templates to get started they are not the end all be all of an effective resume.

The rules have changed in the job market. Your resume is more of a self advertisement than a full length history of your achievements. Some people believe you should put every experience you have had, others say you should only put work history that is pertinent to the job you are applying to. There is no right answer the only true thing is that you cannot simply just upload or submit one single formatted resume to multiple jobs.

Applying to jobs in and of itself is a full time job. You have to really take the time to cater how you want to present yourself to prospective job openings. The best thing you can do is research; you must show that you can do your homework to understand what they are looking for. Human Resources does not have the time to search through hundreds of resumes and read each one. Think about this as a PowerPoint presentation or even an article are you going to read one that takes up the entire space of the screen or an article that runs six pages? Probably not and the same can be said for resumes, where less is more if you are brief and to the point.

When conducting your research use the internet to look at examples of resumes for your field because a business resume for a corporate job will look drastically different than an educator or an art major. So make sure you look at multiple examples or example of peoples resumes who were hired from a job opening in the last year or two. Also make sure you ask if they got the job through a friend, or someone they knew. The resume tends not to be as important as word of mouth recommendation.

Once you have compiled all of your information and have drafted your resume now is the time to test it out. Place it onto the job search engines and see if you receive responses. Ask yourself if they are the types of jobs you expected to hear from? If not you have changes to make, because many searches for potential job candidates or based on keywords and not from people actually reading your resume. Many times I hear of people who get contacted for the wrong job or they used a program but that does not mean they are a programmer for it.

Lastly have people who have jobs and people with the authority to hire whether they are family, friends or even friends of a friend who can give you constructive criticism. At the very least you can get some good feedback and the best case scenario would be that they know of an opening. It is a nice way to get the resume into people's hands without looking as if you are begging for a job. So make sure you put the time and energy into your resume as well as your networking efforts to help you stand out and look like a prime candidate.