Here is your annual reminder that September is “International Update Your Resume Month.” Are you managing your career and updating your career documents?
As an employee, when you tweak your resume, you could be simultaneously gathering performance metrics for your end-of-year review. That’s a WIN-WIN!
Although the Department of Labor reported a decrease in initial and ongoing unemployment claims over the past 52 weeks, the highest local Tri-State area insured unemployment rates were New Jersey at 1.9 and Pennsylvania at 1.2 for the week ending September 10th.
There may be a lot of job openings and hiring going on, but some companies are also laying off employees, so you always need to keep your career documents current and up to date.
If you haven’t dusted off your resume in a while and need some tips, here are seven articles to help you with keywords, verbs, formatting, gaps, and more.
- Win with Keywords on Your Resume & LinkedIn Profile
- Tips for Writing Accomplishments on Your Resume or LinkedIn for International Update Your Resume Month
- Conquer the Employment Gap on Your Resume and LinkedIn Profile
- Secrets to Writing Resumes for Bots versus Humans
- 73 Formatting Tips to Optimize Your Resume to Get Hired
- Which comes first – resume or LinkedIn?
- Over 300 Powerful Action Verbs for Your Career Documents
Once you have established a solid base resume, you can make copies and customize them for each job application. If you have the proper format, it’s easy to exchange keywords, and you can also weave in key phrases from each job description.
Here are the typical sections I use in a resume, though they may vary by individual:
- Tailored Resume Headline
- Core Competencies
- Career Highlights
- Professional Experience
- Past Experience (if applicable)
- Education & Certifications
- Awards & Honors
- Professional Organizations
- Volunteer
Here are a couple of other tips if you are concerned about age discrimination:
- Do not use an AOL email; get a Gmail address
- Do not use Times New Roman; try Calibri or another modern font
- No Objective or References available upon request
- Remove graduation dates
- Only go back 12-15 years of work experience on your resume
If you don’t have time or don’t want to update your resume on your own, hire a career coach who will collaborate with you individually.
NEXT STEPS
- Subscribe to my newsletter on LinkedIn™ for bright ideas on how to manage your career.
- If you need a resume or LinkedIn™ profile to get you to your next step, book a call to chat!
- Join as a member at https://greatcareers.org/membership of the #1 business networking association on the Philadelphia Business Journal’s Book of Lists four years in a row!
- To support our charity at KeepOnSharing.com use the referral code Career
- Follow #GreatCareersPHL
AUTHOR BIO
Lynne M. Williams is the Executive Director of the Great Careers Groups, a volunteer-run 501(c)3 nonprofit organization that provides career development and networking connections for 1) job seekers in career transition, including veterans, and 2) employed and self-employed for career management.
Aside from writing keyword-focused content for ATS resumes and LinkedIn™ profiles, Lynne is writing her doctoral dissertation on LinkedIn™ for Job Seekers. She is a contributing author on “Applying to Positions” in Find Your Fit: A Practical Guide to Landing the Job You Love, along with the late Dick Bolles, the author of What Color is Your Parachute?, and is also a speaker on career topics.
