Out with the Old and In with the New

Official Talascend Release
March 19, 2015

Spring is in the air and just like everyone else, you’re probably setting your sights on household tasks such as cleaning out your garage, freshening up your landscaping and organizing your closet. While getting your home in order is certainly a worthy goal this time of year, if you’re a professional, now is also a good time to give your resume a good scrubbing. Even if you are not actively looking for a new job, it’s a great time to roll up your sleeves before you forget your recent work experiences. You’ll thank yourself later. Here are a few tips to make your resume spring cleaning as painless as possible:

Organize your Resume files

It’s important to make sure your resume ‘filing’ system is organized. Save all your resumes by the date they were created just in case you need to reference past experiences that maybe you don’t elaborate on in your current resume. Also, make sure your computer is backed-up properly or that you save your resume files on a USB drive in case you have computer problems in the future.

Unclutter

Review your past work experiences and delete or de-emphasize work experiences that are irrelevant to your career aspirations or employment level today. For example, if you’re 10 years into your career, you may not need to elaborate on your college internship anymore. Or, if you have computer skill sets that no one uses anymore, purge them from your resume. Also, a general rule of thumb is that you should only include the most recent 10-15 years of your work history that is relevant to your current career goals.

Update

Now that you’ve gotten rid of the old stuff, it’s time to add your more recent experiences and skill sets. If you’ve maintained a certification or affiliation to a professional organization, make sure the dates are current. If your references have moved on, include some new ones. If you’ve recently worked on a large project that demonstrates your growth as a professional in your area of expertise, include it. An even better idea is to include a measureable result of your efforts where applicable (e.g. Increased Department Revenue by X percent).

Identify the Gaps

Now that you’ve updated your resume with your recent work experiences, it’s time to evaluate what you’re missing. Are there skills or certifications that your peers have that you need to be considered for a promotion or a job change? Employers are impressed by candidates that take continuous improvement seriously enough to invest in their own development. If you’re missing experiences, qualifications or certifications, set some goals and seek them out.

Refresh

Update your social media profiles to reflect your new resume. More than 90 percent of employers are using some form of social media to find potential employees; so, even if you aren’t looking, your next employer may be looking for you.

About Talascend

Talascend is a Veteran Owned Business that is dedicated to the success of our nation’s civilian and veteran personnel. To date, the Talascend organization has a staff of 60 experienced and tenured recruiting professionals, a contract community of nearly 700 employees working on-site at our partnering accounts, and a candidate community of 1.2M+ engineering, technical and skilled trade professionals.

With 75+ years of staffing success, Talascend has been one of the most reliable and effective providers of strategic staffing solutions for clients serving multiple industry verticals needing top talent in engineering, technical, and skilled trade disciplines. Headquartered in Troy, Michigan, the Talascend companies have worked with some of the world’s largest and best-known organizations on an extensive range of high-profile projects nationwide. If you are looking for a new career, or to grow your workforce, contact us today!