From Curriculum Vitae to resume, from the thickest stock of paper you could find to a QR code to your LinkedIn profile, the way people present their skills changed a great deal. With technology and business methodology moving slowly for decades to the rocket ship of major changes every few years, how does one present themselves? What about the ‘odd’ economy of years like 2024, when the stock market is booming, but your prospects of landing a new role, especially in technology, have dwindled down to single digits and takes months? What do employers seek, when every role posted produces hundreds, if not thousands of resumes, all within a few days?
Your resume is your presentation, a chance for a potential employer to judge the book by its cover. It’s your GUI, how you come across, and what you potentially offer. Ask yourself, would you buy software, where its controls are confusing, ambiguous, and don’t guarantee software’s use to be performed at a high level?
While no single background is exactly like any other, there are some trends to follow. Most resume writers create neat resumes without spelling errors, but do they follow industry trends to portray you in the best light possible, when you compete with an endless stream of other profiles for roles you didn’t even consider 1-2 years ago? High-end consultants and advisors tend to struggle to land their own jobs. Why would they suddenly be an expert on how to change your fortunes? Still, there are always tendencies in every market. Here are some of the consistent trends.
- Readability:
Is it easy to understand what you offer from the first glance at your resume?
Are there a lot of general statements on what you have done?
Do you rely on a junior recruiter looking at your resume to understand the ‘inside lingo’ you use?
Do you use numerous design options, rows upon rows of disjointed information, and perhaps even include pictures of your certifications, companies where you worked, or brands unaffiliated with you?
For the greatest faux pas, did you even check your resume for spelling and grammar mistakes? How about accuracy of what you state, like when you declare yourself ‘the first of a kind’, while you’ve been doing something long done by others?
- Buzzwords:
Do you explain what you did with your skills or just list them?
Do you truly understand how other companies use your skills, or only care about how you’ve used them?
Do the words you use even make sense together?
Did you explain your buzzwords, or do you expect a reader to Google the terminology you use?
- Priorities:
Is your focus/specialty truly in-demand now?
Do you describe your skills in a way, where they’ll be useful to others from the get-go?
Do you come across excited about what you do, or do you just narrate? - Past matrix:
You saved a particular employer some time on a specific function it performed. Is it relevant to others?
You won an award. Is it reputable and recognizable by others?
You cut down expenses by a certain percentage last year. Is it the same economy/environment?
Beyond these pain points, red flags, and inclinations to follow, there are some traditional sections in a resume, which either make or break the way you come across.
- Summary:
A long summary will likely cause for you to ‘lose’ your reader. You only have 1 chance to make the first impression, and let’s be honest, judgements will be passed quickly. Do you want people reading what YOU think are your skills, or do you want to let them make their own decision about you? - Skills:
Listing skills you used often takes away from the impact you make.
What did you do with those skills?
How much did you use them?
Did you use them yesterday or more like 3-4 (or more) years ago? - Experience:
Even if you’re a consultant, do you come off as a job-hopper? Good consultants stay on for years, or at least a while. Those who switch jobs constantly aren’t just ‘consultants’ but come across as ‘commitment phobic’. An employer wants to see the true impact of what you did, and how much impact have you made in under a year anyway? If you did make major changes in a short time, why did you take such a minor project, that it only took you a few months to complete? Is that because you shy away from true challenges and/or don’t want to learn new things?
Do you explain what you did or rely on others to make accurate assumptions about your work? Are you overly general (difficult to understand) or overly specific (usually only applies to very limited environments)?
Is there a trend in your work history or do you jump from one industry to another, performing whatever functions are needed in each job, and switching between greatly different skills for every new role? That makes you a ‘a jack of all trades’ (and usually, a master of none), not a specialist in a field. - Education:
An Ivy League MBA should be on top. An associate degree from a community college, which closed years ago, may not want to be mentioned at all.
A degree from 20+ years ago doesn’t need many specifics, while a recent degree, or even a certification, may require greater elaboration.
You spent over a decade in your field and have no recognitions at all, be it an accreditation or an award? - Additional:
What do you do when you get home? Do you rush to your customized computer to write code for a cool project you’re exploring? Do you upload it on GitHub right after testing it to make sure it compiles and runs as expected?
Do you volunteer anywhere, be it a local soup kitchen or a Board of some nonprofit?
Have you been published? Do you have patents? Are you a part of any communities in your specialty?
While many factors play a role in making your resume stand out, there are easy to follow trends in the market.
As DEI efforts fade, do you still keep on mentioning ‘Emotional Intelligence (EI)’ and wonder why people see you as a sign of times past? It doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be empathetic or listen to your coworkers, subordinates, and bosses. It just means that those are less of ‘skills’ and more of ‘personality traits’.
As GenAI is the new favorite way of doing automation, are you still talking about the Jenkins implementation you performed two years ago, as if it’s a groundbreaking accomplishment?
When it comes to getting the desired result, there is little difference between the need for a specialist, whether your faucet or your bones break. Trying to use the ‘common sense’ approach in writing a resume will remind that ‘common sense is not so common’. Making mistakes is ok, but if you have less than a 1% chance of being considered for a role in an environment where hundreds of people apply to every job, it’s not your qualifications that get you selected, but HOW you present them.
