In my last post I talked about the importance of the appearance of a resume. In this post, I'm going to write about the importance of tailoring a resume to each job. I've learned SO much about this, and I know I still have a lot more to learn. For the longest time I thought it was fine to have the same resume for every job I apply for. While it's fine to have one general resume when going to a career for or other similar events, it's far better to make sure a resume is tailored around a specific job if we're targeting one.
For example, if you're applying for a job that's looking for people who are strong leaders, good team members, great communicators and positive, outgoing people, you don't want to focus your resume on how awesome you are at programming computers and how well you can analyze things. You want your resume to reflect the attributes and skills they are looking for, because that's what they need.
From now on I will have a master resume that has all of my different experiences, attributes, skills, etc. When I apply for certain jobs I will pick and choose from my master resume in order to match what they're are looking for. I'm sure I'll find my self adding more and more to my master resume as I fill out individual resumes. I know this will help me a lot as I prepare to start my career soon.
I completely agree! I realized as I tailored my resume to a job description, that I was more qualified and experienced than I thought. It was reassuring that my resume reflected who I am and what I've done. I also realized that my resume is growing quite a bit and that I will have to keep a master resume. It's exciting to see what I've done and where I've been on one sheet. I hope that the work I've put into my resume will show when I go to interviews.
ReplyDeleteI love the idea of having a master resume and then only pulling from it what is most applicable for the job you're looking for. I had never thought about going about building a resume quite like that before. Thanks for the great reminders.
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