When you update your resume, mistakes may easily happen. For example, in every resume achievements in old jobs are described in the past tense (“Managed 15 accountants”); achievements in current jobs are described in the present tense (“Manage 15 accountants”). You must be careful, when updating your resume, to make sure that all your old jobs are now described as being in the past, not the present.
Another common error in updating a resume is to keep the information that is already there, even if it is no longer relevant to your current career path. When you were first starting out, your achievements in your first job or your grade point average in college were relevant. After a few years, such details are less important to recruiters and hiring managers; they can be summarized or eliminated altogether, especially if they do not relate to your current career path.
In writing an update to your resume, make sure you keep the format consistent (if the format is modern and appropriate). It is easy to create inconsistency in the style of bullets; to suddenly omit the comma before “and” even though you use it every other place; or to forget what version of a common abbreviation you used previously (such as U.S. versus US versus USA).
Finally, and most important, it is not enough to simply paste new information onto an old resume. You want to look at the impression made by the entire updated resume. Does it show a progression in your achievements and skills? Does it focus on the qualifications most mentioned in current job postings and advertisements? Will hiring managers and recruiters be able to easily find the information that convinces them to give you an interview?
Updating your resume requires the type of care, professionalism, and attention to detail that Robin’s Resumes® is known for. Contact us today.