Getting it Write on Your Resume
by Janet Farley, Ed.M.

There are things in life we like to do such as spending quality time with our families travelling to new and exciting places and spending hours shopping when everything is on sale and everything fits us.

Then there are those things in life we don't exactly like to do, like PCS every few years or hear a doctor say, "this won't hurt a bit".  Somewhere on that list of things we don't exactly like to do has to be spending countless hours updating our resumes for new jobs.

In the name of enhancing your time management skills and in landing the job you really want, let's discuss how to get it write on your resume. Pun intended.

It Lives

Before you launch into edit mode, accept one reality about your resume. It lives. It is not a static document that you review every few years when it suits you.

Your resume is a living, breathing document that you take good care of so it can take good care of you when time is short and opportunities are present. This means you need to give it more than a passing thought on a fairly regular basis. 

Best suggestion? Pick a schedule, any schedule and stick to it.

For example, make a pact with yourself to review your resume every year on the day after your birthday. Or plan to review it every six months. Whatever you decide, be consistent and have it on your calendar as a must do item.

You owe it to yourself. Within the scope of one year, your skills have grown. You have new professional experiences that need to be captured on your resume if you intend to remain competitive.

You'll realize the true benefit of routine maintenance when you want to apply for a job and you don't need to spend an insane amount of time updating your resume.

Targeting Your Resume for a Specific Job

You have found the perfect job and now all you have to do is convince the employer to give you an interview. A killer resume, targeted specifically to that job, may well be just what you need to make that interview a reality. 

Gather all the information you possibly can about the job you want. What skills are they seeking? Credentials? Experiences? Highlight those keywords you see in the announcement. You may even know someone on the inside who can offer you unpublished details.

Compare the job you want with the content on your existing resume.  Do you see an obvious fit or not? Look critically at your resume as though you were the employer. Would you hire you?

Enhance the fit. Assuming you are not already a perfect match for the job on paper, then work to get as close to that point as you can, skill by skill.

Let's say you are applying for a budget analyst job but you've never been a budget analyst. You have, however, worked in job where you had some significant fiscal responsibilities. 

Your mission, then, becomes showing how what you have done in those other jobs is akin to what you can do in relationship to the job you want.  

For example, the job vacancy announcement says you have to be able to develop and coordinate budget submissions and justifications. Maybe you didn't do that every single day in past jobs, but you did do it or something like it annually in one of them. Expand upon that point in the appropriate work narrative.

To effectively update your resume and target it to the job you want, repeat that process for every skill desired by the employer.

You will either be able to directly or indirectly address the skills or not. Whatever you write in an effort to show the fit to an employer, be able to back it up 100%.

Throw the thesaurus away. Don't reach for fancy words. Use the same ones that are used in the job vacancy announcement or within that industry to show your familiarity with the career field, assuming you have it.  

Length matters. Consider the employer before you expand your resume past two pages. If you are targeting a job within the federal government, go into adequate detail and don't stress over how many pages it takes. Stress over the content. The average federal resume is four to five pages long. If you have a ten or more page resume, then you probably said too much.

If you are targeting a job in the private sector, keep it to no more than two pages unless instructed otherwise by the employer.

Highlight the skills you have to offer. Don't get caught up in all the skills, abilities or experiences that you don't have. Instead, sell what you do have. It's you. If you're not happy with what you have to offer, then that is a different situation requiring different action.

Janet Farley is a trusted job search and workplace strategist. She is author of The Military Spouse's Employment Guide: Smart Job Choices for Mobile Lifestyles (Impact Pubs, 2013) and Quick Military Transition Guide: Seven Steps to Landing a Civilian Job (Jist Works, Inc. 2013). Follow her on Twitter @smartjobchoices and she blogs at Life's Too Short to Hate Your Job.

 

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