What Does Your Resume Really Say About You?

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A resume is required for a job search but is also useful even if you stay just where you are.

By forcing yourself to write your resume, you conduct an audit of your career to date:

• Are you making progress, and is this the direction that you want?
• Are you happy with the industry mix – are you an expert in your target industry or are you pigeon-holed in one place?
• Are you doing what you thought you’d be doing by now?
• Are you at the level you expected? Are you in the functional area you want?
• Are you progressing faster or slower than is typical for your position, industry or company? Are you happy with the pace?

What if anything is missing from your current set of experiences and skills? What would you need to add –specific technical skills, overseas experience, management responsibility?

You want to look at your resume in two ways: Look at your current position compared to your past jobs; then look at how the description of your current position changes over time. Ideally you update your resume every time your role changes. This should not only be when you change jobs. If you are progressing within your current company, your resume should change even as you stay put.

This demonstrates that you are growing even within your current job.

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  Looking For A Job? It Is "WHO" You Know!
  

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Caroline Ceniza-Levine is co-founder of SixFigureStart a career coaching firm for Gen Y professionals. Formerly in corporate recruiting and retained search, Caroline has recruited for Accenture, Booz Allen, Citibank, Disney ABC, Oliver Wyman, Pfizer, and Time Inc. She currently writes career columns for Portfolio.com and Vault.com and teaches Professional Development at Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs.

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