Resumes need attention and updating

Posted August 25th, 2023

Resume writing needs time, just like your  rose garden. resume writing is the key.
Just like the rose needs tending , so does your resume!  It’s vital that you consistently update and revitalize your resume

A resume is a living, breathing document! It should NEVER remain static, if it does, it will loose its relevance and perhaps become redundant.  Workplaces and work requirements are changing rapidly and it’s important for job seekers to get a professionally written and rewritten resume completed for their job search.  What does this mean for the applicant  who is looking for a job now?  Today’s job seeker must have a well-written resume; the resume that is rich in content,  concise and with wording that showcases career achievements, capabilities  and accomplishments as it pertains to the job that they are applying for!    The resume must demonstrate diversity in skills and capabilities based on technical skills, and where possible, volunteerism, languages, publications, and awards and recognition.

The job seeker should be careful when hiring a resume writer.  They can be sucked into ridiculously expensive resume writing services with very little return on their career search investment.  Some resume services charge between $1-2,000K and the result is essentially ‘a pretty resume’ that on appearance looks great, with borders, fancy text, and filler words, but very little Return on Investment, because it’s loaded with subjective verbs versus objective descriptors.  Some claim that they can “re-brand” the applicant.  This is often marketing bunk! Re-branding sounds a bit too fake for me!

There are resume certification services that claim their resume writers are the best qualified  – but those certifications are not necessarily important.  And, you don’t necessarily need to meet face-to-face with those resume writers – that just makes you spend time and money that is not really necessary.

You do want to use a resume writer with hundreds, if not thousands of resumes under their belt and loads of positive reviews and references.  You do want to see samples of those resumes when you are shopping around.  A professional resume writer will also explain the process to you,  for what they will do with your resume.  They will explain the process, the steps, and work interactively to reword and design the best-practices of the resume rewrite formatting.  Good resumes service companies will offer smaller and affordable packages, so even if the job seeker is unemployed, they can afford the services (this means the resume writer is empathetic to the job seeker’s financial circumstances).  You want to get a ‘good feeling’ from the resume re-writer’s personality, where you hear their empathy and just know they are on your side and will work hard to really make your resume shine to recruiters.

EDUCATE YOURSELF ON RESUMES AND RECRUITING PRACTICES:

Statement claim 1:                       

You need to rewrite the resume for every job you apply for …

Response 1:              

Not necessarily so,  if you write a ‘capability’ resume, for all your skills, experience, strengths, and education, that one resume only needs to slight adjustments for each job application.

Statement claim 2:           

Resumes should only be 2 pages long

Response 2:              

Resumes can be longer than 2 pages. Agencies and employers are looking for the most qualified candidate in experience, which means you may need to ‘load’ that resume with far more content to really compete with the dozens or even hundreds of other competitors for those  jobs.

Resumes for private sector companies can be one page (if new to job market and fresh graduate) and

to up top four pages (if experienced careerist).

In the main, Resumes used to be submitted in paper form.  Loads of filing cabinets took up lots of valuable office space.  Now,  most resumes are required to be uploaded  and digitally stored.  And, now the recruiters can search that database of resumes in the entire database or only within the job requisition pool of applicants using  Search criteria for the more vital key words in a resume and find the more qualified candidates in a few key strokes.  They don’t care how long the resume is (now) because they let the search engine do the identification of the more qualified candidates and only need to glance over the resumes now for  key words and phrases. In summary, it might just be a machine that decides if you are shortlisted to an interview!

 

TAKE ACTION – be proactive

Commence  the process of updating and obtaining a rewrite of your resume TODAY with the best resume writer in the marketplace so you, as the job seeker, can be ready to actively (or passively) search for that next exciting career job!

Ivana Agapiou resume writer