8 ways to revitalize your résumé for the New Year - Sterling Career Concepts

8 ways to revitalize your résumé for the New Year 8 ways to revitalize your résumé for the New Year Google Images: Erik from BPO DiaryNew year, new resume? In the midst of all the New Year resolutions and revitalized interest in diet, exercise and improving lifestyle, it is natural to take a good look at your resume. After all, if your resume does not speak well of you and what you can do for a prospective employer, what will? A resume is a key career document. From it you can create a LinkedIn profile and Facebook page, as well as many other complementary pieces that will enhance your online and offline presence. I have outlined eight significant parts of the resume that you should consider. 1. Document Style â€" Word templates, be gone! To catch the reader’s eye and stand out from the crowd, I recommend clients avoiding using standard-looking resume templates. In general, your format and font style should be eye-catching and unique, not cookie cutter. Even if you are in a more conservative industry, it’s smart to take the time to jazz up your page format so that it doesn’t come across as a Word template. 2. Header details â€" Is it all there? It’s commonplace to include an address but I do have some clients who prefer to not list a street address for privacy issues. A compromise is to include your city and state. Nowadays, listing at least one phone number and an email address is expected. You want to make it easy for the employer to get in touch with you. This is not the time to play hard to get! 3. Professional Summary â€" Draw the reader in! Before diving in to your job descriptions, many resumes today have a headline (and possible subheading) with a branding tagline that markets your strengths followed by a summary section and areas of expertise. Consider it the headline to the news story â€" its purpose is to pull the reader in. 4. Job Description Formatting â€" Too much of a good thing. Ever seen a job description with 10 bullets? In a word, ineffective. It becomes hard to walk away with a sense of what the person did or accomplished. Too many bullets and their impact on the page is diluted â€" the reader’s eye glazes over. I recommend saving the bullet formatting for accomplishment-based statements so they stand out when the reader skims down the left-hand margin. One trick to creating accomplishment-based statements from existing resume content by asking the question “why?” or “with what results?” after each statement. 5. Think marketing document, not detailed chronology. Consider your résumé to be prime real estate. Allocate space appropriately based on relevance to your job target and professional experience. It’s okay to minimize jobs from earlier in your career. A general rule of thumb is to include details from the past 12-15 years, and even within that time period, limit the space allotted to earlier positions as they are typically less relevant to your job target than more recent experience. 6. Quantify Pending Degrees â€" Give yourself credit for completed work. If you’re more than halfway finished with an academic degree, I advise clients list the specific number of credits completed as a more concrete sign of progress rather than just listing an expected date of graduation (which may or may not be accurate). 7. Less is More for Academic Details â€" On-campus club memberships have a short shelf life. Once you’re a couple years post-college, begin paring down the details listed under your academic degrees. An exception worthy of staying on would be any strong honors or awards directly correlate to your field of study or current profession. 8. Let’s Round You Out â€" Help define your character for the reader. Beyond the usual “computer skills” section towards the end of the document, do you have any community involvement or volunteer activities? Do you hold any current (and relevant) professional association memberships? Have you received any professional or civic awards or recognition? One caveat is to not list “hobbies.” I recommend clients keep content professional and value-added. When revitalizing your resume, keep a critical eye to details, spelling, wordsmithing, and punctuation. Never write a resume from 3rd-person or use pronouns like “I” or “my.” If you find it too difficult to be objective, then you may want to call a professional. At Sterling Career Concepts we focus on each client’s unique value to a prospective employer and showcase their talent to appeal to the hiring manager. We’d be happy to give you a free consultation and estimate of costs.