5 Ways Your Resume Could Be Outdated—And How to Update It

When it comes to jobseeking, there’s nothing like a CV that shows an employer how a candidate keeps up with the times. The resume formats that worked a few years ago may not land you the jobs you want today. Check out a few resume trends below you didn’t know you were missing out on:

1. Don’t: Include a Career Objective

Nowadays, professional wisdom states that having an objective (usually placed at the top of your resume) may do you more harm than good. Why? Because you only have a limited amount of time to capture a recruiter’s attention, and objectives are redundant. You’re already applying, which means that your objective is to land an interview with the position you’re seeking—and everyone involved already knows that. Instead of wasting this prime real estate on your profile, switch to something else more useful:

2. Do: Include a Professional Summary

Some say the Professional Summary is the new Career Objective. (Well, this author does!) Instead of placing a redundant objective at the top of your resume, most career coaches nowadays advocate professional summaries. Question is: what is a professional summary? Essentially, it’s a quick paragraph (2-4 short sentences should be enough!) that highlights the most important skills, traits, and experiences you have that are relevant to the job post you’re applying for. Think of it as your written elevator pitch: if the reader will only take a few seconds to read your resume, they should get the gist of who you are—and be convinced to call you after.

3. Don’t: Add ALL Your Professional Experience

A common mistake most jobseekers make is thinking that resumes are legal documents—ones where you have to tell the truth down to the last detail. But the thing is, they’re more marketing documents than they are legal ones. Translation? You’re allowed to craft your resume in the way that shows you in the best light. You should never lie about your experience of course, but you are allowed to omit the experience that isn’t relevant. Especially if you’ve been a professional for the past few years, not every job you’ve held has to be divulged to your potential employer. Not only does this save time for all parties, but it also shows the company that you’re aware enough of what the job entails to only include relevant facts—helping them make a truly informed decision should they ever hire you.

4. Do: Add Numbers to Your Results

When it comes to applying for jobs, data is king. While buzzwords and technical terms may sometimes be necessary in order to capture attention, there’s nothing like a jobseeker who knows the measurable impact they delivered in their careers. Wherever possible, try to limit the flowery words, use fast and frugal language (read: the simpler the words, the better) and use numbers to paint better context. Percentage-driven growth, number-ranked market share, and revenue expressed in specific amounts are all great examples of using data to your advantage.

5. Do: Remove Personal Information

Nowadays, the job market is so competitive that every candidate can’t underestimate the odds of their data being used against them. Unless your age, marital status, gender, recent photo, hobbies, etc. have anything to do with the job at hand (and they rarely do nowadays), scrap including them altogether. Your experience as a jobseeker should speak for itself, after all.

A Smart Jobseeker is An Effective One

At the end of the day, applying to a job is just the first step to building the career of your dreams. We hope that our updated guide will help you get better at doing so. As for everything else, we at Kalibrr are just a blog post or tip away!

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