9 Reasons to Update Your Resume: Are you prepared for a recession?

With the stock market tumbling more than 3000 points in two days while the Federal Government tries to undertake massive downsizing, a lot of you may be dusting off your old resumes, perhaps literally.

You may want to ask yourself the following questions when you find that old resume:

1. Is your old resume specialized for your former career?
2. How old is this resume?
3. Are you making a career change?
4. Has your job target changed?
5. Does the resume need to be “decluttered?”
6. Have you acquired more education?
7. Is the format out-of-date?
8. Will changes in application tracking system (ATS) technology impact my resume?
9. What should be included or excluded now?

It is easy to spot a “quick and dirty” resume update. You will improve your chances to land an interview when you take the time to follow best practices for updating your document.

And, if you have been working in a specialized field such as the Federal Government or academia, a “quick and dirty” edit won’t do the job at all.

Was your previous document specialized?

You may have to start from scratch if you are leaving the federal government or academia. A federal resumes and academic curricula vitae is too long. Prospective clients have sent me 50-page CVs that are largely incomprehensible to a business-person although they document a career of astonishing achievement. Federal resumes may be five or 10 pages in length for senior-level professionals and executives, and they are often written in language only another government bureaucrat (which I was at one time) could love. So if you have been downsized by the DOGE, or your university has lost its funding because the current regime doesn’t like DEI or medical research, think about creating a brand-new one-page or two-page business resume that summarizes your lifetime of achievement for a business leader.

The age of the resume matters.

You will probably want to make changes even if you already have an old, accomplishment-based business resume. If your one-page or two-page business resume is more than five years old, consider rebuilding it from scratch.

A five-year-old resume is usually out-of-date even if you have worked at the same job for that period. Your daily tasks may have changed over time, and more importantly, you probably have added impressive accomplishments that should be on the resume. And, at a minimum, you’ll have to reformat the resume so the new information continues to fit on one-page or two-pages.

Are you changing careers?

Are you switching industries instead of just looking to change jobs? Your previous resume format might not position you as effectively for a new field as completely revamping your resume. In addition, you may want to change the presentation of the content in the resume itself — for example, a resume for a teaching role may present the same information differently than you would present it on a resume for a corporate education position.

An “extreme” example I dealt with several years ago was that of an engineer who went to law school, worked as an attorney, and then went back to software engineering. His resume for each field had to be markedly different.

Has your job target changed?

Usually, the transition you are planning is less dramatic than switching industries or professions. For example, a resume for an entry-level bank teller role is (or should be!) significantly different than a resume for a commercial banker position. So, even a modest change in job target can necessitate a resume revamp.

Of course, if you are leaving the government or academia, you may have a job that does not exist outside of these worlds. As a result, you may need to identify jobs requiring your skills and design your career marketing content around these jobs.

It might be time to “declutter” your resume.

 It’s common practice for jobseekers to update their resume by adding new roles without considering the document strategy as a whole. This is especially important for jobseekers with 10-15+ years of experience, as the resume may be approaching a full two pages. Sometimes completely revising the resume provides a better way to organize older experience.

Commonly, we receive resumes that list every position since the jobseeker left college. The resume may even include student activities and jobs. Often, entry-level jobs and student activities are no longer relevant, and should be deleted to “declutter.”

In other words, you may want to develop a new resume even if you get downsized from a corporate job as a result of the stock market meltdown. You could be staying in the same job and industry, but your old resume will still be too long and cluttered when you just add to it.

You have more education.

Education is an ongoing process for many of us in the public and private sector today. A resume for a new college graduate is significantly different than a resume for someone who now holds a graduate degree with 3-5 years of experience in their field. If your current resume was created as a recent graduate, you’ll want to overhaul it to emphasize experience and include relevant continuing education or advanced degrees.

While employers will focus on your experience in most cases, your market value will increase as a result of additional education and training. But you will have to summarize your additional education and training succinctly. The long lists of university courses and industry training that would appear on a CV or federal resume won’t fit on your bsuness resume.

Resume formats have changed.

Sometimes you can look at a resume and just know it’s “old.” That could be due to older fonts used (Times New Roman) or outdated ways of presenting information. In addition, the strategy around how specific sections are used (for example: Summary of Qualifications) has changed over time.

ATS technology changes will impact strategy.

A related issue is formatting resumes so ATS systems can read them.  Newer systems should be more flexible and accept formats that would not have been recognized in the past. But we do not know what system your prospective employer has purchased or subscribed to, so it’s a good idea to be conservative.

Test your resume by displaying it in a simple text editor such as Notepad. Virtually any ATS will read the resume if a text editor can read it.

What to include/exclude has changed.

The first impression your resume makes is important, so avoid certain outdated information. For example, omit a full address in favor of city/state/zip. The ATS does not need your “snail-mail” address—city, state, and zip is enough.

Make certain your current online contact information is on your resume. This includes your cellphone number, email address, preferably Gmail, and your LinkedIn profile address. Employers will contact you via your smartphone, email, or LinkedIn, not through postal mail.  

The most important takeaway for this week is that the resume you used the last time you were downsized or pursued a promotion, or went to work in the government or academia may need to be rewritten. Grafting your latest job or most recent achievements to the top is rarely sufficient because other things have changed, too. Review the entire document and revise it before sending it out.