The last time I was laid off (about 5 years ago); I was not prepared for it and did not have an up-to-date resume. I ended up spending about a month updating my resume and creating customized resumes for the different types of positions I was seeking as well as saving it into different document formats such as MS Word, Adobe PDF, HTML, and ascii text. That month ended up costing me almost $7,000 since all of my normal expenses continued and I also had to pay for my own health insurance. But my only income at the time was a meager $300 per week unemployment check.
In retrospect, it would have been a lot wiser for me to have just kept my resume up-to-date all along, and not wasted a month of my life and almost $7,000 added to my debt pile. This suggestion is more relevant than ever in today’s economy. The U.S. economy shed 533,000 jobs in November, and that is the largest monthly job loss since December 1974. The U.S. unemployment rate is currently 6.7%, which is the highest it has been in 15 years. In light of these alarming statistics, I wanted to offer five tips on improving your resume:
1. Make your resume stand out
When preparing your resume, make sure your resume stands out among the rest. The best way to do this is to customize your resume and cover letter for the specific position that you are applying for. Also, make sure to run spell check and also use a visually appealing format. If you have any certifications, make sure you include the certification logo(s) in the top margin or in the left margin on your resume.
2. Keep your resume concise
List your best qualifications for this particular position at the top of your resume. Avoid making your resume more than two pages, as that may make it irrelevant and lose the recruiter’s interest. Use action verbs with an adverb: “Successfully completed the Java development project and met all project timelines” . . . or “Completely upgraded all major system components to support Unicode languages.”
3. Highlight your achievements
Make your achievements factual and relevant. Tell how much money you saved the company and what the business impact was for the project that you were part of. Show how you did more with less. Recruiters are looking for money-wise candidates in tough economic times.
4. Polish your resume
The recruiter will know if you spent enough time producing and refining your resume. From a recruiter’s perspective, if you have put in sufficient time and effort into your resume and produced a quality resume, then the recruiter will assume that you will do the same in your work. A quality resume means a quality candidate.
5. Don’t forget to highlight your soft skills
Soft skills are skills like written and verbal communications, leadership, and teamwork. The very fact that you include these on your resume is key, because most people who don’t have strong soft skills wouldn’t think about including it on their resume. So include these on your resume and get a leg up on the competition.
