But I’ve worked in recruitment for years. Often, candidates follow all of the advice above, but fail to pick up on the single most important résumé tip of all time: tailor your résumé to your target role.
Thursday, April 23, 2020
Most important résumé hack for job search success
But I’ve worked in recruitment for years. Often, candidates follow all of the advice above, but fail to pick up on the single most important résumé tip of all time: tailor your résumé to your target role.
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I think everything I have learned about making a resume I learned from Boevers' class and everything said in this article was part of that lesson. Making a good resume is one of the most important things I think you can learn in school. I wish that had been something I had learned earlier than college. When I got around to updating the resume I had made for my college interviews I almost laughed at how bad it was. It looked like I had crammed all the information about me I possibly could in the smallest space I could. The amount of extraneous information I had included and the formatting as I said, was not the best. There were things I had done in middle school still on there. There were multiple font sizes, some of which you couldn't read once it was printed, and I focused heavily on things that weren't really all that important to what I was trying to achieve. My current resume could use an update if I'm going to be honest. The formatting is still a bit all over the place but maybe that's just me.
I think in my lifetime I have probably cycled through about 10 resumes, from the very first one I made from a Microsoft word template in the 8th grade, to the various ones that I have cycled through in my high school and college career. As this article mentions, I have found that the most helpful tip is to continue to cut down on the content in a resume, in order to include content that is relevant and showcases the most important credits that you have accomplished. I also think that it was very interesting to say that it may be important to tailor your resume to specifically meet the qualifications of the job you are applying to, as if you were putting yourself into the mindset of the people who were going to hire you. This could possibly entail having several resumes and editing them for every job application. Elena Keogh
I’m always weary of “hack” articles, promising to improve something or other in your life in one quick, easy, painless, and secret step. Tailoring your resume to your target role, as suggested in the article, seems almost self evident, but is a good reminder to have in mind as you apply for internships and jobs. I found myself editing my cover letter more than my resume in my search for internships for this summer, since the resume norms for theatre professionals in design and production fields seem to be a little different from those of the typical business resume. I personally keep both a business and a theatrical resume, a byproduct of my days in my high school’s finance magnet, and the difference between those is quite interesting, for them both being a reflection of me and my work and experience, they reflect on me and present me quite differently.
Making your resume match the job is some good advice and we’ve definitely talked about it in production planning. As students, we are making this transformation from blowing stuff up to fill the whole page to cutting unnecessary stuff because you couldn’t fit everything you’ve ever done onto one page. I think I’m at a good spot where I have just the right amount of stuff for my resume. This summer should also be interesting because no one in the entertainment industry is getting their big resume booster internships. The article didn’t mention anything about design aesthetics. What the resume looks like is something that’s not talked about a lot, but it could be important, especially in the entertainment industry. I noticed that some people’s resumes were really good looking when we did the exercise in class, and I’m sure it does a lot to make you stand out. In the entertainment field it shows you’re creative, but in a non-creative field it would most definitely set you apart from the pack.
As was mentioned in the previous comments, the tips given in this article are very similar to those that we learned in our production planning class this semester. During said class, I ended up recreating my entire resume as I realized that I really had next to no idea what a good resume should look like. I appreciate that this article went into depth about the importance of tailoring your resume for the position you are applying for. I'm sure many people, including myself, are always a bit too eager to put down everything they have ever done in order to show recruiters or employers all of the experience they might have. However, when you really think about it that makes no sense. I like the example used in the article: "Your cooking hobby or animal shelter volunteer work may well be a big part of your life, but they’re not going to add to your candidacy as a senior marketer in the legal sector." Yes, you may have plenty of experience working at a daycare center, but there really is no reason to put that on your resume when applying for a position as an electrician.
I think this article and its points were useful, even if not tailored perfectly to our industry. The biggest point they made was that your resume should be changing and edited for every company you send it to, emphasizing the qualities they’re looking for. The whole point of job interviews is that you’re trying to convince them that you are the best person for the job out of the many applications they are likely to receive, and the first step in that is ensuring that they see what they’re looking for on your resume. Doing this shows that you’ve done your research on not only what they’re looking for, but also the company itself, something that can be very beneficial in the hiring manager’s eyes. With a theater resume, which is essentially a series of lists of past shows, skills, qualifications, and professional connections, it matters slightly less than in other industries where the job positions are slightly less defined and need more explanation, but this advice is particularly useful for the cover letter as well. I know I’ve been guilty of writing a ‘form’ cover letter during internship application season and filling in the blanks of company name, position name, company, company and then submitting it with no or few other changes. While this approach saves time and energy while applying to many companies at once, it’s also less personal and comes across in your writing as that you don’t care who hires you as long as you get hired. Which is a valid position to take, but not what the people doing the hiring want to hear. Adding a level of personalization to your resume and cover letter could be what tips the balance in your favor.
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