Tips For Updating Your Resume

You left your job to look for better opportunities. You find a job listing that you think fits you perfectly and submit your resume, but after days or weeks of waiting, you don’t get a response. Why? Clearly, you’re well qualified for the job right?

Well for the most part, you may be perfectly suited for the job but did your resume really show them those qualifications? Here are a few tips to keep in mind when you really want employers to hire you!

1. Only Include Relevant Experiences

When you’re applying for a specific job, you need to be able to show the employer that you have the necessary skills to take on your desired role. You must highlight experiences that will allow the employer to find it easy to see why you’re a good fit for the job. 

To do this, be selective of the job experiences, side projects, or relevant classes that you include. For example, if you’re applying for a Data Analyst position, you need to include skills that the employers see as necessary or beneficial for the job such as mathematical ability, fluency using different programming languages, accuracy and attention to detail, etc. You could even do a little research to help you narrow down suitable skills that employers are prioritizing in their hiring process. This is because even if you’re applying for the same position but in a different company, some of the skills and experiences that you acquired in your previous job may not be ideal for the company that you’re applying for. 

Think hard about what to consider as qualifications to further tailor your resume and accentuate your eligibility. The easier you allow the employer to see that you have what they’re looking for, the higher the chance you have to be considered for the position.

2. Highlight Your Growth At Previous Companies

You’ve been through challenges at your previous jobs, gained tons of experience, and maybe even got promoted once or twice. If that’s the case, you need to emphasize. Don’t just say that you were promoted, talk about it. Tell them what position you had and what position you were promoted to. You can list down your achievements in this position, describe how you grew, why this is important. Tell them how this helps you and your career in the future. Employers will want to see how fast you can learn and grow since it will be key in helping the company in the long run. 

If you’re worried they might miss the details you put in about your growth, here are a few suggestions on formatting:

• Highlight job titles using Bold or Italic.
• Avoid using more than 2 font styles.
• Create sub sections for roles, growth, and achievements.
• Use up to three font sizes for further emphasis.
• Add lines or separators to the layout to organize different sections.

3. Personal Accomplishments Count

If you have achievements with regards to your personal or professional life that you think is relevant to the job, then by all means, incorporate them into your resume. You can include achievements like publications or patents you may have, mastering more than 3 different languages, being part of recognized organizations along with your contributions, volunteer work during times of crisis, earning industry-specific certifications, or even winning a national competition related to the job you’re applying for. Being able to showcase what you’ve worked hard for demonstrates your eagerness to succeed, improve, and grow in any given situation. You can create a specific section for all this if you want to further detail how this helps with your personal and professional development.

It shows off your technical and soft skills and presents them in a different way, which will help you score points with the employer by letting them know that you harnessed skills inside and outside of work.

4. Avoid Overselling Yourself

Let’s be honest, sometimes we do exaggerate our experiences and stories a bit. While this is a very normal thing to do, this might prove to be your downfall when applying for a job.

Employers are well versed in judgement on whether or not an applicant is capable of what they’re claiming to be able to do. They can easily tell if one is over-exaggerating their experiences or just plainly lying about it. If you really want to sell yourself, just tell them plain and simple what you accomplished and how it benefited your team or that company. 

You are welcome to brag a little if what you did really impacted the company in a good way but keep it realistic and most of all, honest.

5. Keep A Master Version Of Your Resume

A master version of your resume is one that contains every single job, achievement, classes, skills, and experience you’ve ever had. It’s a very long version of the resume you currently use now but you’ll never have to send this version out. This master resume will only act as a data compilation of everything you can use for making your tailored resumes.

This makes it less time consuming and gives you a more efficient method when you need a version specific to a job prospect. Just take a look at it and copy paste the relevant information for the position you want. That’s it, quick and easy.

Think hard about what to consider as qualifications to further tailor your resume and accentuate your eligibility. The easier you allow the employer to see that you have what they’re looking for, the higher the chance you have to be considered for the position.

There you go. Keep these few but useful tips in mind when updating your resume. Whether it’s to feature your unique skill set, your fascinating experiences, or just your overall talent, ensure that everything you include is there for a reason. The faster the employer takes note of this, the sooner you’ll get the job.