September is International Update Your Resume Month, which makes it a good time to take a fresh look at one of the most important documents in your career toolkit.
But before you open your resume and start adding your latest job, accomplishments and skills, I would encourage you to pause. Updating your resume does not necessarily mean adding more.
In many cases, the best update is taking a closer look at what is already there and asking a few simple questions:
Is this still relevant?
Does it demonstrate my value?
Is it helping tell my story?
Does it make it easy for someone else to understand what I bring to the table?
A Recent Conversation Got Me Thinking
I recently had the opportunity to dig into many of these questions during a Resume Writing AMA. I joined Paula Christensen from Strategic Career Coaches for a conversation hosted by Bob McIntosh, a career coach at MassHire Lowell Career Center.
We covered a lot of ground, including resume length, how far back to go, tailoring, keywords, AI, accomplishments and what makes a resume stand out. We had so many great questions and ideas during our conversation that I thought it was worth sharing a few takeaways here.
If you’d like to hear the full conversation, you can access the Resume Writing AMA recording here.
One thing we kept coming back to is that updating your resume isn’t necessarily about following the latest rule or adding another bullet every time something changes in your career. It’s about making sure the document keeps telling the right story.
After years of writing executive resumes, I’ve found that a few simple questions are often much more useful than following a list of rigid resume rules.
Here are 8 things I would consider before you update yours.
#1 There Is No Hard and Fast Rule About Resume Length
I am often asked how long a resume should be.
The short answer? It depends.
For most experienced professionals, 2 pages is perfectly reasonable. A 1-pager may make sense for someone earlier in their career or someone who has more or less held the same role throughout their career. For C-suite executives, 3 pages may be appropriate, particularly when an addendum or additional information is warranted.
What I DON’T recommend is trying to squeeze an entire career onto a predetermined number of pages, simply because you’ve heard that resumes are “supposed” to be a certain length.
The goal is not to include everything.
The goal is to include what matters.
I wrote about this in more detail in “Resume Too Wordy? Too Long? How to Keep it Simple by the Numbers,” where I discuss the importance of ruthless editing and making a resume easy to skim.
A resume should contain enough information to tell a compelling story, but not so much that the reader must work to find it.
#2 Earlier Experience Should Earn Its Place
Another question I hear frequently is: How far back should I go on my resume?
Again, there’s no universal answer.
Rather than automatically removing everything beyond 10 or 15 years, I ask whether earlier
experience is helping tell the candidate’s story.
Sometimes it absolutely is.
I’ve worked with clients whose earlier roles provided an important foundation for the work they do today. In those cases, leaving that experience out might make the story harder to understand.
Other times, older experience adds very little and creates another opportunity for the reader to get distracted.
Rather than counting backward a certain number of years, the more useful question I ask is:
Does this experience make sense to include, or is it detracting from or muddying my story?
I explored this in “How Far Back Should I Go on My Resume?” where I discussed why earlier experience can sometimes be more important to your story than a standard resume rule would suggest.
#3 Make Your First Page Earn the Second
Think about the last time you reviewed a resume.
Did you read every word?
Probably not.
Today’s hiring decision makers are busy. Resumes are often viewed online (possibly on mobile), and readers tend to scan before deciding whether something deserves a closer look.
That is one reason my journalism background continues to influence how I approach resume writing.
Journalists are taught to never bury the lead (lede).
The most important information belongs up front.
This same principle applies to resumes.
Your strongest value proposition should not be hidden halfway down page 2. Your most compelling accomplishments should not be buried at the end of a long job description.
In “The Biggest Resume Killer? Ignoring Lessons from News Writing,” I explain how some of the basic principles of news writing apply to resume writing.
Your resume needs a strong lead. When you update yours, ask yourself:
If someone only read the first few lines, would they understand what I’m known for and the value I bring?
#4 Tailoring Doesn’t Mean Rewriting Your Resume from Scratch
One of the biggest misconceptions I see is that tailoring a resume means completely rewriting it for every job.
When I develop a resume for a client, I often ask for several job postings that represent the types of roles they are targeting. Reviewing 5 or 6 helps me identify common themes, language and skills that matter most.
From there, the resume can become largely ready for those types of opportunities.
When a specific role comes along, tailoring may mean making strategic adjustments:
- Refining the headline
- Bringing relevant skills or keywords forward
- Adjusting the order of accomplishments
- Making the first bullet under a particular role especially relevant
- Emphasizing experience that directly connects to the position
Rather than creating completely different resumes, make sure the version you’re sending speaks clearly to the opportunity in front of you.
PRO TIP: If you haven’t updated your resume in a while, begin by identifying positions that currently interest you. Your resume should reflect where you want to go, not where you’ve been.
#5 Write for Humans First, then the Tech
There is no question that technology has changed resume writing.
While ATS or Applicant Tracking Software Systems (often AI-enabled) can scan and parse resumesvfor keywords, skills, and other information – chances are a human will review it at some point.
A resume should never read like a collection of keywords assembled for an algorithm.
The skills you want to be found for should naturally appear throughout the document, supported byvevidence of how you used them.
While it’s important to identify and include a keyword, it shouldn’t replace the story behind it.
If you say you are an expert in transformation, for example, the resume should demonstrate what youvtransformed, how you did it and what changed as a result.
#6 Use AI to Help Update Your Resume, but Don’t Let it Tell Your Story
Below are 2 ways I use AI in resume writing:
#1 To research a company to understand its growth, products or services, identify industry trends or explore the issues that may be important to a particular employer.
#2 To identify potential gaps.
There is a big difference between using AI to help you think and asking AI to create your career story.
It doesn’t know what it was like to walk into a struggling organization and turn it around.
It doesn’t know the conversation you had with your CEO that changed the direction of a project.
It doesn’t know what you did differently from the person who held the job before you.
And it certainly does not know which experiences from different parts of your career belong together to create a meaningful story.
That is where human judgment comes in.
I have written about this evolving relationship between AI and the job search in “The Evolution of Job Search and How It Affects Your Resume.”
The tools can be helpful… but they should never replace the thinking that makes your career story yours.
#7 If Your Resume Sounds Like Everyone Else’s, it’s Time to Put More YOU Back In
This is one of my biggest concerns with how many use AI today.
I’m seeing a sameness in resumes, cover letters and other career documents. The language can be technically correct, the keywords may be there and the formatting might even look polished.
The person, however, is missing – and it often says a lot without really saying anything at all.
Your resume isn’t meant to tell the reader what someone in your position does. It must tell me what YOU did.
What did you save?
What did you build?
What did you improve?
What became more efficient because you were there?
How large was the team?
What was the budget?
What changed?
And, perhaps most importantly, why did it matter?
Those details turn responsibilities into accomplishments. They also make it much harder for your resume to sound like it could belong to anyone.
When you update your resume, don’t just ask, “What else should I add?” Ask: “What can I say here that someone else could not?”
#8 4 questions to Uncover the Story Hiding in Your Career
When I interview clients, I am often listening for the details behind the bullet points.
A resume might say someone “led a transformation initiative.”
That’s a starting point, but I want to know more.
So I often come back to 4 questions:
#1 What did things look like when I started?
#2 What did things look like when I left?
#3 What did I do to get things from beginning to end?
#4 Why did it matter?
Responses often uncover responsibility, scope, challenges, actions, and results – transforming a generic statement into a compelling accomplishment.
They can also reveal something bigger… common threads.
Maybe they repeatedly walk into complicated situations and make them simpler.
Maybe they are consistently the person who builds teams.
Maybe they have a history of taking struggling operations and making them profitable.
Maybe they are the person organizations turn to when they need to navigate change.
Those common threads become what you’re known for, and what you are known for becomes part of your brand. Your story.
Updating Your Resume Isn’t About Adding More.
It’s about making what’s already there more meaningful.
If September’s International Update Your Resume Month inspires you to finally open that document sitting on your computer, don’t feel like you need to start over.
Start by reading it differently… like a busy hiring manager.
What jumps out?
What gets buried?
What feels generic?
What no longer matters?
What is missing?
And most importantly, can you see the story?
Your career may be complicated. It may include pivots, promotions, career breaks, unexpected turns or experience that doesn’t fit neatly into a traditional progression.
It doesn’t mean you lack a story. It means your resume needs to help someone else see it.
Remember… while the tech surrounding job search continues to evolve, good questions, clear writing, relevant details, and a compelling story matter.
Your next update may not require adding more. It may simply require looking at your career with fresh eyes.
Book NOW for your free resume consult.
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