Daylight Savings Time is upon us again, making the mornings incrementally brighter and the evenings enjoyed in the dark of night. Sigh. At least the mosquitoes are gone for a while.
We’re reminded to set the clocks back an hour, as well as the semi-annual reminder to swap out the smoke alarm batteries. (Because you don’t want them to fail when they are needed, and let’s be honest, they will only start to beep that the battery is low in the wee hours of the morning.)
I’d also like to instill a new semi-annual habit with you: updating your resume.
There are several reasons you should keep your resume up to date:
1. Like your smoke alarm, you want it to be ready when it’s needed. If you should suddenly find yourself unemployed, that is one less thing you need to have in place to get a new job hunt started.
2. You forget stuff. Most professionals wait until they decide to look for a job to update their resume. Years could go by in between versions. You are bound to forget significant accomplishments and achievements. Only having to look back six months or so makes it much easier to remember accomplishments and other key bragging points and decide if more recent stuff trumps older wins.
3. Opportunity can come knocking at any time. In this day when so many companies are starved for talent, an opportunity might come find you. Maybe a recruiter like yours truly calls with an exceptional opportunity or maybe your organization has an internal opening come open. Having a resume you can quickly shoot back assures you get submitted to an opportunity quickly and at the front of the line. I can guarantee the first applicants to a new job get a better look than ones that apply days or weeks later.
4. It’s not a document you really want to slap together in a time crunch. Taking your time to do a good revision is worth the effort. Especially when you are not in "I need a new job" panic mode. You can hire a resume writer if you are stuck, and have time to make revisions.
5. It’s a good self-assessment. Has your resume not really had a lot to add to it in a while? Maybe the best bullet points were years ago. Maybe your job has not grown in size or scope in a long time. Maybe it’s time to start asking for new assignments or challenges.
A resume is an important tool for any professional to advance their career.
Make sure yours stays up to date.
If you do take my advice and do a revision, feel free to shoot it over to me! If you get stuck, let me know, I have great resume writers who can do it for you.
With “The Great Resignation” upon us – there are bound to be new career opportunities in the future. Go ahead and put “review resume” as a twice a year task on your calendar or phone.
You can thank me later.