Do not update résumé
After two years, your résumé ad falls out of date. Therefore, do not update
it—rethink it!
Today’s
technology is moving at a lighting pace. Whatever may have been a hot commodity yesterday
is obsolete today. Merely adding to what you have currently without retrofitting the previous
is outdated mentality. In most cases, it won’t work.
Résumé ads serve two purposes. The primary purpose is to generate interviews. The secondary purpose is to
provide interviewers with an interviewing guideline.
That is it. If you want your ad to accomplish more, you are wasting time, money
and energy.
There
is no universal format for résumé ads as long as it fits comfortably on
standard paper. Should you entertain the notion of using odd dimensions, be
advised that résumés are routinely faxed and email forwarded to other decision
makers. When you fail to fit into the
system, you end up somewhere else.
By
caveat, contact information should be located at the top. This is where an
employer expects to find such information. Beyond that, whatever follows is
left to one’s creativity. A
little creativity, however, goes a long way. Get too fancy, cute or weird and
you risk being labeled an oddball, misfit, fruitcake or crackpot.
In rethinking your résumé ad, observe the following:
·
Keep the information fresh, relevant and focused. When something becomes
irrelevant, out of date, or off message, scrap it.
·
Present information in sound bites. That, by the way, is a little trade secret. (;
·
Avoid superlatives and adverbs, and use adjectives
and prepositions sparingly.
·
Avoid creating mulligan stew. This occurs when you
throw everything into the résumé pot, hoping something sticks. Won’t happen.
·
Limit the use of bullet points.
A
common question asked is how long should the résumé be? That is easy to answer.
Is everything on the second page relevant? If not, shorten it to one page. On
the other hand, if you have exciting information, length becomes less
important.
Non-active job seekers—those who rarely change their employment status, routinely confuse résumé ads with personalized job applications. When employers want you to fill out their job application, they will provide one.
Finally, think of your résumé ad as a 15-second commercial. This is the time
employers initially spend glancing over your ad. If the ad is too difficult to read—due
to small type or long-winded passages, they move to the next commercial.