Curate Your Resume

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Curate: a verb.

It’s an interesting word. By definition, it means “To pull together, sift through, and select for presentation, as music or website content”.

I often think of a museum curator, who must sort through hundreds if not thousands of paintings by the great masters like Da Vinci or Picasso, choosing only a handful for patrons to view. The purpose is to select the best of the best; to curate the collection down to tell a story in a limited space.

What a difficult job!

Right now I am trying to “curate” my personal belongings in an attempt to keep the best of my best.

Not because I need to tell a story with my clothes; simply because my goal is to keep everything in my closet in the bedroom.

I started out with the simple stuff: Hubby’s things. It’s easy to curate his personal belongings. After all, no one needs the 100 thing-a-ma-bobs I found spilling out of his tool chest.

Most difficult? Trying to curate a woman’s shoe collection. Ten pairs of black pumps may all appear identical at first glance yet upon closer examination it becomes clear that, much like snowflakes, no shoes are exactly alike and each serve a different purpose.

Hubby is shaking his head. This from the man with 100 thing-a-ma-bobs in the garage.

Curating my belongings is hard. I guess I’m just sentimental since each time I try to rid myself of an item, I remember when I purchased it or who gave it to me and I just can’t bear the thought of losing that memory.

Here’s another curating challenge that I bet many of us struggle with: the resume.

Our tendency is to over-tell our story. To share every detail of each job and sometimes to list every job we’ve ever had, which is too much itself.

Like too many clothes in the closet or too many thing-a-ma-bobs in the tool chest, too much information on the resume is not always the best form of presentation.

The key to being a good curator is to look at a collection with a critical eye; select only the best work and being strict enough to say “no” to the rest.

When it comes to our resumes we should do the same. This can be super-hard because it’s personal. This is our story of our hard work, and we want everyone to see it.

Plus, it’s difficult to determine what to keep and what to eliminate. The key is to remember that the resume is just one tool in the job search process, so use it to focus on the highlights; key points of interest that may entice the hiring manager to bring you in for an interview.

Some thought starters:

  • Review everything with a very critical eye, looking for the most important information you want to share
  • Hone your best success stories for inclusion on the resume
  • Say it with fewer words wherever possible
    • Even career veterans with a long work history should keep a resume to two pages; those starting out should have only one page
  • What are the three things you want the reader to know about you?
    • Start writing with this information; make sure each is clear and not cluttered with unnecessary information

Using these thought-starters, write your resume. Curate your information to provide a succinct presentation of your story.

Just like our closets and drawers become overstuffed and we need to curate our collections, our resumes can become overstuffed with words and information as we hang on to all of our work examples and stories.

Take time to curate your resume. You – and the hiring manager –will be pleased with the results.

If It’s Broke, Fix It

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Resume meme

Why do we always say, “If it’s not broken, don’t fix it”?  Seems like that statement sets us up for mediocrity, settling for something that might not be quite as good as it could be.

My guess is that we sometimes follow this path because it’s easy.  Change is hard, man!  It takes work and effort and time.  Not to mention the frustration we all feel during the “improvement” process.

We might not have this old saying if it was easy to come up with something new. Usually there are multiple iterations involved.  If we are developing something new at work, then there are meetings and committees and disagreements and setbacks and more meetings.

Fixing something is a pain.

Despite the pain or frustration of making improvements to something that already works, there comes a time when we must realize that adjustments need to be made.

Take our resumes.  Many of us – myself included – work diligently to get our resumes to a good point. The format is good, the wording is good, and we are comfortable with the result.  The resume has received good reviews from others and we’ve even secured interviews –and jobs – using this version.

It’s tried and true. Why would we want to change something that’s worked so well for us?

Because even tried and true solutions can get stale. 

As a career coach and mentor I’m constantly looking at resumes.  I find inspiration in some of them, particularly in formatting.  Many are in dire need of improvement, particularly the wording or the type of information included.  All of them serve as a reminder that while mine is good, it could always be better.

There is always room for improvement.  Yet it’s hard to get started making a change because it’s not easy.

And this may come as a shock to some, but it’s important that we tailor our resume to each job application using key words that may help secure an interview.  That’s right; a different version each time we apply.

If one version is difficult, multiple versions may seem like a nightmare.

In reality it’s not.  We develop a “base” resume with our information and then create separate versions that focus on different accomplishments.

For example, I have a version that better highlights my marketing skills and experience, and another version that focuses on my PR experience.  The differences are subtle but they are important.

Word of caution: be careful about getting too caught up in the minutiae. The goal is to develop an improved resume quickly so we can use it for interviews, our LinkedIn profile, etc.  It’s easy to get so obsessed with making improvements that we never arrive at a usable version.

Trust me; I know this all too well.  As a writer I’m never quite satisfied with my work and if given the opportunity I will always be editing.  There came a point when I was writing my book, Tales of the Terminated, that I finally had to stop editing and start publishing. Otherwise I would never have finished the book!

I challenge all of us to take a hard look our resumes and if it’s broken, fix it.  For some, this may be as simple as changing the font and/or format. For others it means letting go of some information that is no longer necessary.

The important thing is that we acknowledge that change is scary, frustrating, time-consuming and a pain. But it’s worth it in the end.