Are you also one of those people who consider a task well finished after completing your resume and then forward it to a million employers so that you find a job real soon? Well then you’re one big escapist. This phenomenon, popularly known as resume blast, has been common for quite a while now. Although it makes the work of the job seeker real simple, job providers have developed a serious aversion to it. They’ve learned to ignore such resumes making your job search a futile exercise. So at times when you’re unable to track down what might be the cause of your rejection, make sure you don’t ignore the constant ditto resume forwards you do to each employer.
Think of it this way. If you seriously care about someone, don’t you bother to write a personal note or message for them? So why ignore your prospective employers? Think of your employer as one of these people who are going to play an important part in your life and write to them as if once they read they’re convinced that you’re the person who’ll make their organisation complete. Essentially what I’m trying to say is that you need to start writing personalized resumes for each employer whom you want to work for.
No matter how corporate a writing a resume sounds, also, no matter how much mechanically it is treated with respect to the function of merely conveying information, an all-encompassing resume will take into account who’s going to be the prospective reader of the document.
So the question now is what do you do to make the resume-reading-experience for your hirer special? With personalized writing I mean the person who’s going to read your resume has to feel that he/she has been given priority. You have to speak the same dialect that they expect you to speak, but still manage to convey what you essentially have to. This doesn’t mean at all that you don’t maintain your individual identity and uniqueness of your personality going too far flattering your employer.
What’s going to work magic will depend on how industrious you are. You need to actively edit your resume, make modifications, additions and subtractions just to make sure your document suits the requirements of the position at which you’re going to work. Your skills cannot be at disjunction with each other. You cannot look for a managerial job when your skills section says you’re a good editor or something totally random. Things have to be re-organized themselves between skills, hobbies and abilities. You’re still going to be the same person but in a different format.
Similarly, your job seeker may not be very pleased with your experience in guitar training when you’re looking for the job of a store manager. Relevance has to be strictly taken care of. You need to present before the employer what exactly he’s looking for. But while you’re doing so, make sure you’re not just making up information just because all of it has to sound relevant. Psychoanalysing your employer comes only after you psychoanalyse yourself. You first need to know where you belong and then things will fall into place much easily.
So don’t just throw arrows in the air, instead aim and shoot. Don’t make one resume for all employers, but make one for each of them. I know it sound like a lot of work, but believe me, it going to prove to be of a lot of benefit.
This post has been contributed by Gayas Eapen.
