Last week, a client asked me if I thought “a resume is just a resume is just a resume.”

No, I replied…I don’t think so! A resume is a reflection of the resume’s owner. It must represent what you have to offer and directly target the employer you hope to reach.

Just as you (hopefully) wouldn’t just walk up to a rack of birthday cards and randomly select one to offer a loved one, you shouldn’t think of your resume as inconsequential to your search. Even as networking and personal branding become more and more important in job search, it is still necessary and important to have a solid, well-designed and written resume.

I recently spoke to a potential client who explained that he didn’t have a resume of any kind. He had been able to land an interview or two based on well written letters to targeted employers. The jobs didn’t pan out, but I reminded him that, at some point in a hiring process, he probably would have needed to produce a resume, even as a formality, for HR.

So, while you try to network your way to a job, using every tool at your disposal, take a good, hard look at your resume. Many times, clients believe that they aren’t getting interviews because of a specific thing that cannot change. Their age. Their level of experience. Their field. All of these may be factors if you are not landing interviews, but more often than not, there is something specific about your resume that is holding you back.

Make sure that your resume isn’t the one everyone is calling home about – for the wrong reasons! You want to stand out, but not because you misspelled “Public” or forgot to list your contact information. Your resume shouldn’t be a laundry list of “stuff” you’ve done, at the expense of listing your skills and accomplishments. Make sure that your resume isn’t a 5-page autobiography of every computer program you have ever touched in the last 12 years.

Review. Revise. Re-envision what you have to offer. You’ll be better off!

photo by abiznessdigital