How to Update Your Resume

As you develop your skills and grow in your career, naturally you’ll want to update your resume and LinkedIn profile.  How do you do that?  The common mistake is merely to add the new job description and place the position prior in past tense.  Over time, your resume will become very long document that just lists your history.  Does this type of resume tell a story?  Does it properly market you for current career goal?  Does it support your brand?  Not likely.   Whether you hire a professional writer or update your resume independently, there are basic things you should consider.

What’s New?

Take note of your new education, courses, skills, certifications, community service, and work experience.  Just as you may have done with your prior resume, uncover major accomplishments with measured results.  These new examples represent information to add to your resume. 

Where Are You Headed?

Everything on your resume should support your career goal.  Therefore, it is important to know your goal.  What is the next step in your career? What roles are you targeting?  Always think ahead so you can create a plan and update your resume to help you reach your target.

What’s No Longer Important?

If you don’t trim your resume, it has the potential to be many pages as you add new jobs over time.  Trimming your resume is not solely to achieve a magical two-page resume. (Although a brief resume is greatly appreciated by most readers.)  You want to review all of your information to be sure that it is aligned with your career goal.  It is common for professionals to have twists and turns in their career.  Some facts are no longer necessary. Additionally, as time goes by the older history is less relevant because it happened long ago.  Picture your resume as an upside-down pyramid with less detail about your early career and more about the recent career history. Are you wondering how far is too far to go back?  Ten to fifteen years is the ideal amount in most cases.

The Bottom Line

Your goals, experience, talents, and knowledge develop over time. It is important to update your resume to reflect the “current you.” This is more than just adding new skills, expertise, and accomplishments. It is about ensuring you have created a story with your career progression, included keywords and eliminated information not relevant to your current goal.  When you thoughtfully update your resume from top to bottom, the result is a document that clearly projects why you are the ideal candidate for the target job.