International Update Your Resume Month: Your Ultimate Guide to Crafting the Perfect Resume

Have you looked at your resume lately? Now may be the perfect time, considering this is International Update Your Resume Month!

The annual occasion raises awareness about why everyone—not just those currently seeking a new role!—should be updating their resume regularly. At Integrity Staffing Solutions, we work with job seekers every day, and we have seen how beneficial this can be. You remember in sharper detail the key experiences or new skills you’ve picked up, and you can ensure your profile is fit for success in today’s modern and quickly changing job market.

A resume is a candidate’s first introduction to a potential employer—and first impressions matter! With a document that effectively showcases your strengths, a resume can be the hook that lands you the coveted job interview. And from there, you can take the big leaps you need to move your career forward.

Why You Should Update Your Resume Regularly

You may not be on the job hunt at the moment, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be prepared! With a current resume on hand, you can jump on applying if an opportunity happens to crop up. Plus, as you take steps to further your career, like by networking or pursuing promotions, you should be ready to showcase your skills. Today’s job candidates move fast—and with a resume at your fingertips you can lead the pack.

Today’s employers also move quickly, so a candidate’s resume needs to catch their eye to get noticed. Having old, outdated or irrelevant experiences and skills on a resume could have recruiters and hiring managers casting your document to the bottom of the pile. Instead, focus on recent accomplishments and relevant positions to show future employers you’re invested in and serious about furthering your career.

Using AI to Enhance Your Resume

There’s certainly no substitute for great experience and skills, but like most areas of the world of work today, resume preparation can be strengthened by artificial intelligence. What AI resume tools can job candidates look to?

Resume builders: First job? AI-powered resume builders can help you start from scratch.
Writing assistants: It can be tough to condense all of your experiences into a crisp, clean, easy-to-read resume. AI resume tools can help make it happen.
Application tracker: When you have several balls in the air in your job search, AI-driven application trackers help you stay organized.
Resume scanners: AI can provide valuable insight on what your resume needs to gain traction with an employer.

While human recruiters and hiring managers may certainly be reading resumes, many employers today are also looking to tech to enhance the backend of recruiting. Your resume needs to be optimized for that experience! AI resume tools can scan your profile and suggest the keywords that will boost your ranking in an employer’s Applicant Tracking System, and to make you stand out for certain positions. You can even look to AI to learn about the skills and experiences that are most valued in a particular industry and tailor your resume in response.

Both tech and recruiters may eliminate resumes with too many grammatical or spelling mistakes—so, optimize your resume with AI! Apart from tailoring the content itself to the job, AI can also ensure your document is error-free, which is sure to grab the attention of a prospective employer.

Translating Your Work Experience into Effective Resume Bullets

You may have a lot of information to pack into a resume, but you have to think strategically! Resumes that are too long or too wordy can be overlooked.

One of the best resume writing tips is to keep it concise yet compelling with bullet points structured around the STAR method, which stands for:

Situation: Provide the context for the position or experience.
Task: Identify the problem you needed to solve.
Action: State the solution you were involved with.
Result: Emphasize the real impact of your work, using numbers or percentages, for instance, to drive home its importance.

The most effective resume bullets convey not just where you’ve worked, but what you’ve done. Listing job responsibilities gives the context but doesn’t truly show what you were able to accomplish! You don’t need to have won awards or gotten big promotions to have had success; for instance, think through which skills your responsibilities helped you develop, or the wider impact of projects or teams you contributed to.

To effectively convey that, avoid overly complex sentences and vague, flowery language; it may sound good but if it’s not getting to the heart of your accomplishments, it can be distracting. Effective resume bullets are brief, focused, and results-oriented. Verbs that will resonate with both recruiters and an ATS emphasize action:

accomplished
created
produced
illustrated
developed

Common Resume Mistakes to Avoid

It can be tempting to include your full range of experiences throughout your career on your resume—but that’s one of the most common resume mistakes. Recruiters need to know just what you’ve done, learned or been involved with that will make you an asset to their team.

Updating your resume frequently can help you personalize it for a particular job or organization. For instance, for a manufacturing role, ensure that any similar positions—or roles where you learned skills that could be beneficial in a manufacturing setting—are situated near the top; if you’re applying for other types of roles, you should prioritize that experience.

With such a focus on the content, you don’t want to lose sight of the importance of designing a professional resume format. Another of the most common resume mistakes is that job seekers may think unique fonts or flashy graphics can help their resume stand out, but in reality, they distract from the content. Think of your resume as the written form of what you would say in an interview: Professional, and laser-focused on what you could bring to the organization.

Looking Forward: Keeping Your Resume Future-Ready

You’re more likely to catch these mistakes if you regularly take the time to revise your resume. Here are some tips for committing to this practice:

Set a reminder—for instance, through an online calendar—every month or every quarter to give your resume a look with fresh eyes.
Keep a running list, such as on a Google Doc or note on your phone, tracking projects you’re working on, skills you’re learning and accomplishments.
Build out your online network. The more regularly you check in to sites like LinkedIn, it will become more top of mind for you to keep your own online and paper profiles up to date.

While resumes convey what you’ve already achieved, they should also reflect that you understand the potential you bring to a future employer. That means staying keyed in to the trends shaping the industry you’re in, or hope to break into. For instance, as artificial intelligence makes its way into warehouses, highlight any experiences you’ve had developing AI skills. If you’re in customer service, emphasize experiences where you’ve ramped up quickly in a role, to convey that you’re ready for the fast-paced, quickly changing nature of this type of work.

Conclusion

Getting those habits started is the biggest obstacle—so, use this International Update Your Resume Month to double-down! This month, make a plan for updating your resume, and the strategies you’ll use to accomplish it. More than anything, maintaining an effective resume is about being intentional; prioritizing the quality of your resume allows you to think, plan and execute, which will ultimately lead to a resume that is sure to stand out.

Do you have your own strategies for making your resume shine? We’d love to hear! Drop us a comment or let us know on our social media channels. If you want to keep the conversation going, reach out to your local Integrity team. We’re here to share our resume writing tips and help you take that next important step in your career!