5 Easy Ways to Clean Up Your Resume This Spring
Posted
on Thursday, April 7, 2022
in
News
The fresh season of spring is upon us — that popular time of year to wash our windows, spruce up our yards, clean out our closets, and start anew. But spring isn't just a great time to clean up your home; it's also an ideal time to clean up your resume.
Whether you're actively looking for a job, or content with the one you have, it's important to update your resume to keep it fresh. Here are 5 simple cleaning tips to make your resume shine:
Declutter and consolidate. Sometimes having less is really more. If you're an experienced professional, you may have several years of work experience. Experts recommend that your resume should not include more than 15 years of work experience. To save space, you can consolidate your work experience beyond 10 years into an "early career" section. Be sure to include only experience that is relevant to the position you are seeking.
Polish up your experience so you shine. While employers want to know about your job responsibilities, they are most interested in learning more about you and your skills and accomplishments. Instead of spending valuable resume space with lengthy job descriptions, focus on your accomplishments in those positions. Try to quantify your accomplishments in any way you can. For example, if you are a sales professional, you may say that you increased sales by a certain percentage over a certain period of time. Employers receive many resumes and quantifying your resume in this way will help make it easier for them to view your successes.
Weed out the canned stuff and customize. If you haven't updated your resume in a while, chances are you have some dated information in your resume. For example, you may still have a section titled "Objective" with a generic statement about what you are looking to accomplish in your career. You can put yourself in a better position for a job by creating a customized opening statement that is relevant to the position you are seeking. When crafting that statement, think about the skills and experience you have and how they relate to the position you are seeking. You can also eliminate sections, such as "Personal Interests" and "References furnished upon request."
Keep it graphically simple. Many people try to differentiate their resumes with fancy fonts and colors. This can be distracting to employers and could take away from your experience. Try to keep your resume clean and simple with concise descriptions. Always proofread your resume to ensure there are no typos or spacing issues that could advance your resume right to an employer's shredder.
Streamline your contact information. You could be the perfect candidate for a job, but if you don't include your contact information or if you include too many ways to contact you, you could lose your chance of landing your dream job. You can provide one phone number and email address. You don't have to include your Facebook and Twitter contacts.
As you can see, giving your resume a good cleaning isn't all that tedious or time-consuming. If only the same could be said about that other type of spring cleaning.