The talking resume – What does your Résumé say about you?

Despite the fact that a resume is one of the most important documents that will ever be create for ones adult life, many people spend no more than an hour creating it! Perhaps their resumes are accurate then? Maybe their entire work history can be hastily written in an hour – all their skills, knowledge, qualifications, interests and experience! Or are they just underselling themselves?

·         Take a step back from your resume. Think about it for a minute about what you have written. You are giving these few sheets of paper to a complete stranger and hope they will help you change your life! Sure, you know what you meant in that summary you wrote….but do they? Often, people miss out certain important aspects of their capabilities because they assume that the person reading the resume will know what they meant. But is this the case? Not always.
Pretend a complete stranger handed it to you and have a think about what your resume really says about you. Consider even passing it to a friend or relative and ask them to read over it. This is particularly effective with people who don’t know much about your profession – chances are the recruiter will know just as little! Well, that usually isn’t true, but if you assume it is, then you cover yourself!

·         Tragically, those who don’t lie on their resumes stand to lose jobs to those who do. That’s where most candidates go wrong and are tempted to give in to peer pressure or exploitation at the hands of a head-hunter. In times of temptation, it is important to remember that it is what you do with the document, rather than what the document can do for you. A resume is only a marketing tool.

·         Split up each section of your resume and write in on a separate document and have a look at it on its own. Remember – recruiters will be focusing on individual parts of your resume more than the resume as a whole (it’s all new to them – they are reading it and learning about you for the first time). Another benefit of doing this is that it lets you refine areas of your resume one by one. Sometimes we tend to jump from section to section, doing little bits here and there. This can lead to your resume having an inconsistent feel.

·         Having read your resume as if it weren’t your own, can you honestly say you liked what you read? Is the person you describe on your resume the kind of person you would hire for the job you are applying for? What have you missed?     
Try to figure it out sincerely, this is your first step towards your dream job!

Never just churn out a resume and send it out to apply for jobs. It’s a very important part of your job search and if you don’t get it right, you will get more practice because you will be applying for lots of jobs!