A while ago I wrote about your LinkedIn profile and LinkedIn summary and so on. But what about the old-fashioned resume? Is it gone forever?
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If you want to apply for a job using video, it’s worth reviewing your previous activities. In a way, your resume is just a way of keeping score – a means to an end.
It’s worth reviewing your past employments through the eyes of your potential employer. What are they about, and how do you fit into their picture?
Update your resume: mind your language
If you’ve been (un)employed for a long time, getting back into the old resume-making routine (was it ever a routine?) may cause you to create sentences with a vocabulary that was out of fashion well before the 21st century started.
Size up your future employer:
- What clues does the company website yield about the nature of the organization and its employees, language-wise?
- Check the LinkedIn profiles of a few employees to enhance the picture.
In very formal organizations, little may have changed over the years. Everywhere else is a different matter. Don’t use the language you would have used twenty years ago.
Resume add-on? Writing your motivational letter
The letter or video to go with your resume should contain as little as possible from your resume. This is where you show your potential employer:
- Who you are as a professional and what you’ll bring to the company.
- No less important is what you’ll get from the company.
#1: What can they expect in terms of skills, knowledge, and work attitude? Don’t put anything in there that’s not you. I don’t just mean inventing skills you don’t have, but also presenting yourself as more proactive, or more pliable, than you really are.
Tip: being turned down for who you are is bad enough. Don’t get turned down for trying to be like someone else. I’ll admit this sounds like dating advice 😉
Does #2 sound odd? How about getting the chance to do new projects, meeting new people, or making sense of the organizational mess they’ve made? What a company has to offer you is working experience. Lots of it. If it’s the right kind of experience, so much the better. If not, keep the valuable bits of your newly found knowledge and run.
After a friend of mine left a company he said: “That was a complete waste of my time”. It wasn’t. He’ll never, EVER, apply for a job in that branche again, or for that type of job, without being aware of the potential pitfalls. It’s that easy. Next time you’ll know better. Unless you fail to learn.
What have you learned from your previous job?
Content Rambler 
I have never stayed in a job longer than 2 years. Thing is, on 1 August this year it will be 2 years in this job, and I don’t want to be bothered looking for another OFFICE job. I want to write for a living. So… how do I do THAT?!!
Interesting question. You’re already writing, you know how to manage a blog, you’ve got an audience… It depends on whether you want to write fiction or non-fiction. There are ‘office jobs’ that involve writing. In fact I’m switching to a job as content manager at my current employer. Writing is part of it, though not all of it.
Check out every single option to write for a living and see what aspects you like or loathe. Try them out before you chuck them out 😉
Thank you 🙂