A resume is required for a job search but is also useful even if you stay just where you are. By forcing yourself to write your resume, you conduct an audit of your career to date.
A resume is required for a job search but is also useful even if you stay just where you are. By forcing yourself to write your resume, you conduct an audit of your career to date:
Are you making progress, and is this the direction that you want?
Are you happy with the industry mix – are you an expert in your target industry or are you pigeon-holed in one place?
Are you doing what you thought you’d be doing by now? Are you at the level you expected? Are you in the functional area you want?
Are you progressing faster or slower than is typical for your position, industry or company? Are you happy with the pace?
What if anything is missing from your current set of experiences and skills? What would you need to add –specific technical skills, overseas experience, management responsibility?
You want to look at your resume in two ways: Look at your current position compared to your past jobs; then look at how the description of your current position changes over time. Ideally you update your resume every time your role changes. This should not only be when you change jobs. If you are progressing within your current company, your resume should change even as you stay put. This demonstrates that you are growing even within your current job.
Is Your Job Search Flexible or Just Unfocused?
As a recruiter, I’ve seen lack of flexibility on the recruiting side with employers clinging to every last detail in their ideal spec while perfectly good candidates get overlooked. As a career coach, I see jobseekers prematurely dismissing possible targets waiting for that perfect job. It’s true that you want to be focused in your job search (otherwise you dilute your efforts and come across as scattered and possibly desperate).
5 Questions to Test If Your Resume Is Recruiter-Proof
After recruiting in search and in-house for over ten years, I have read thousands of resumes. Due to sheer volume of resumes received and all the other things that vie for the recruiter’s attention in the hiring process – scheduling, interviewing, networking, reference checks, client debriefs, and more – the resume review process is ruthlessly quick.
Why Conventional Wisdom On Work Flexibility Is Always Wrong
In a previous post, I wrote about why employment statistics are always wrong. In a similar way, conventional wisdom on work flexibility is always wrong. It is impossible to generalize something that is inherently case-by-individual case. Therefore, any boilerplate advice or conventional wisdom is bound to omit a key consideration, underweight or overemphasize other considerations, or take too long-term or short-term of a view.
