Dear JobsBlog: I’m involved about methods to concentrate my resume. As an example, when listing my professional expertise, need to I only checklist past accomplishments that relate towards the position I’m applying for? Or list all my major accomplishments?
- Over-Accomplished
Dear Achieved: When it comes to accomplishments, you need to listing a little of both your job-related accomplishments and your major accomplishments. And good for you for knowing that “accomplishments” are the key here, not just a listing of prior job responsibilities. I suggest starting with a general, one-size-fits-all resume that will serve as your "template." On this resume, record all the educational, expert, extracurricular, etc, accomplishments that you might want to mention if you were applying for a new task, regardless of what that profession actually is. Personally, I update this master document about every 3 months to make sure I’m recording new accomplishments – and even dropping ones that just don’t measure up any longer. Once you have your master resume,
Microsoft Office 2010, it is easy to use this document to craft specialized resumes for a specific occupation, a discipline, an industry, or a company. This might mean trimming or deleting some accomplishments that don’t relate at all or don’t help your cause. It will also probably mean re-ordering some accomplishments to put the most relevant ones first or second under prior roles. Finally, be sure to include a summary statement to the beginning of your resume where you could highlight the most relevant, important, and impressive info ideal up front. Head on more than to one of my former blogs to watch a screencast that Zoe (the other co-founder of JobsBlog) and I produced a couple years ago to talk about accomplishments on a resume... and the large What, How, and Why. Part 1 and Part 2. (I’m a geek; I know.) Gretchen