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Resume relevancy ~ Keeping it current!

© Annemarie Cross

With 2003 behind us and your New Year's resolutions (hopefully) still on target, now would also be a great opportunity to reflect over the past year and consider any special projects, contributions, and other notable situations relating to your career and update your existing resume with these details.

Unfortunately, all too often people tend to leave the process of reviewing and updating their resume until such time that a new job opportunity arises or they are forced to, through job loss, redundancies, and/or company takeovers or other situations beyond their control.

As your resume is a critical aspect of your job-search collateral, keeping it up-to-date is important and will ensure that you avoid facing risky delays while it is being updated, thus allowing you to present your application immediately when required. Rushing to meet the deadline could result in misinterpreted information or errors being documented that could later be discovered by the interviewer, or worse still, omission of crucial data that if included, could quite possibly have resulted in a job offer.

Updating your resume regularly will guarantee that information recorded is true and accurate as you should have easy access to documentation and relevant data, as well as being able to recall the surrounding circumstances and challenges accurately. By waiting 3 - 5 years down the track, many reports may no longer be accessible, colleagues required to verify some of the information may no longer be employed by the company, or you may not be able to recall the exact situation since it happened such a long time ago.

To get your research process underway some of the information may include:

- Professional development programs, both formal and informal that pertain to your career target, including certificates, diplomas, short courses or in-house training workshops.

- New procedures, processes or policies that you have designed and implemented into the workforce contributing to overall improvement in efficiency and productivity.

- Special projects that you either directed or collaborated with, not forgetting to detail the objective, steps taken, and successful outcome - particularly if the result increased revenues and profits by X%.

- Receiving special recognition from a customer over a situation that you managed to rectify with minimal delay and fuss. Identify the concern and what steps you took to prevent the problem escalating out of control.

- Securing awards or recognition for excellent work performance, or achieving results beyond budgets and forecasts.

- Redesign, improvement or elimination of existing procedures, processes or policies that were either redundant or simply not working that have since revitalized the workplace.