Update Your Resume

I keep bragging to people that I enjoy updating my resume and this isn't a big deal, but when I'm done I feel a huge wave of relief and exhaustion that it's finally over. It's fun, interesting, and I enjoy the process, but it requires more brain energy than just "making a bullet list about my work history." You're projecting your entire professional presence into a few pieces of paper for several people and automated systems that you don't know anything about.

What are they looking for? Which parts of the job description are most important to them, vs other parts they needed to include per policy? Will they see how amazing I am through this, or do I sound like I'm fluffing myself up for show, and what is actually intense imposter syndrome will come off as arrogance?

Your resume is a piece of documentation about your life, just like every time you fill out the form at the DMV to adjust something on your ID card. Since I started to contextualize it this way (not until 10+ years into my career), it's been a lot easier to tackle and update without dragging my feet. I'm not just making some pages to get attention, I'm taking a snapshot of my professional life at the moment, and reflecting on how far I've come and where I want to go next.

If you're not a person who journals or reflects often, it might be the only time you're putting effort into updating a document about your life. Even if you are a highly reflective person (like I am), most people don't update their resume unless they are thinking of change, so it's possible you've got several years of work to cover. Because of this, it can feel incredibly daunting work to jump into.

I had to update my resume recently. In the interest of capturing all my steps and workflows across the site, I'm sharing it here!

Since it's something I enjoy, I don't tend to look online for tips other than "current year best practices for resumes" and design inspiration, so I don't know what kinds of articles are out there giving someone's step-by-step workflow for updating a resume. What I do is a lot of work, but it's detailed and prepares me for many different kinds of interview questions, so it pays off in the long run.

PS - Tips scoped for people who are updating their resume, not writing the first one. Also, I specifically wrote this to do without AI help, but there are a lot of places you could do that.

Draft 1 (of 3)

This is not the final, no one will see this but you. Each draft takes me about a week to make because I like to leave a little time in between each step to clear my head.

I'm a writer through-and-through, but if you're not you might find other methods of reflection more helpful. For example, update things as you talk it out with someone, watch videos related to the role for ideas, ask people how you acted during that time period, etc.

List all your jobs and duties

List the jobs, where they were (company/location), and dates (month/year), then under that make a bullet list of all the things you can think about that you did.

• You probably already have this done in a past resume version so you can start there.
• Include as much as you can remember that was expected of you. Make note of the stuff you especially liked or didn't like.
• Don't copy/paste the job description - put these in your words. Often we have duties that are not explicitly in the description. Also, you'll need to feel comfortable talking about them later, so start with writing them down.

Hey! Many people need to hear/read a message 6-7 different ways before they start to integrate the knowledge, use this tip on yourself to build the on the stuff you'll say in interviews later.

Tie job duties to projects

List the projects, assignments, tasks, tickets, workgroups, initiatives, or other work you did where you exhibited the skills required to complete those duties.

• Create sub-bullets under your duties for each job and try to think of any project/work you did related to that. For example:
  • Duties related to process improvement may have been exhibited in your work on improving a content publishing workflow for the design team.
  • "Ticket work" can be grouped into the types of tickets you do, and how that helps you support the success of your customers and company.
• You can list as many as you want, and right now there's no pressure to make a full bullet - add the project name or something to remind you what it is when you go back later.

Identify tools used in each job

List the major tools and technologies used in each job that are relevant to your field.

• This varies widely depending on field so you might have to look up online what kinds of tools people are interested in seeing. I have a technical background - this may be more important for those jobs than others.
• Sometimes resumes separate tools into a separate bullet, but I'm going to recommend that you keep a 1-line list (isolate the VIPs to save space) under each job.
  • It both communicates how long you've been using certain tools, and says that you know what's important to getting the job done.
  • It also alerts the hiring manager on how much training they might have to do (you used a similar tool, you used the same tool, you've never used a tool like theirs before).
  • For now, make a list of all tools that you can think of so you can refine them later.

Draft your skills list

List 6-8 skills that you want to highlight on the resume. These should be extremely relevant to the job posting or field.

• I like to use 3 skills that they are definitely looking for and 3 skills that highlight work I enjoy doing no matter what the context. Of course you want all of the skills to be relevant, but I highlight my needs in my work, too. This is one way I make sure I'm seeking jobs I'll like (unless you don't care, then skip that).
• If you think of more, write them all down. You'll refine later.

Start formatting your resume

If you're like me, you're dying to format now (and have been for a few steps) because you're building some content ideas but it all looks kind of ugly.

• Add your name, job title, contact info (phone, email, city/state, LinkedIn).
• Start structuring your work experience, headers, and everything else you want to do with formatting.
• You might add headers and draft your Professional Overview, Certificates, Education, Awards, etc.
• Figure out how you're going to position everything. You can look up templates and use one of those or build yours from scratch. I like to use inspiration from free templates, but build the doc using colors and fonts I like. Also, it's not usually built well on those sites so I end up remaking it from scratch anyway.

Draft 2 (of 3) - tailor to job post

No one will see this but you (unless you ask for early help). Make sure you take a night or a few days between the first/second draft to clear your head and let things percolate. The second draft usually takes me a few days because I have 20 years of experience and it's a lot to get through.

I know first draft felt bad but this is the bulk of the work. Get some coffee, whiskey, water, or your preferred working drink.

I recommend saving a new file for your second draft as your first draft contains a lot of good information that you might want to reference again in the future, especially if you ever change fields. Unless I'm totally changing careers, this method means that after doing the first draft, next time I only have to repeat those steps for recent jobs, with a refresh in skills focus depending on the position.

Review your first draft

Review the first draft with a 'red pen' or equivalent technology.

• I do have a printer at home because I make zines, so I tend to print my drafts and then mark them up with a pencil. You might use a commenting feature instead or make live updates as you go.
• Take any note that you think about. "This is stupid." "what does this mean?" Add words that are missing, new ideas, cross off items you didn't like if the lists are too long, reorder bullets, add/correct dates, etc. Don't highlight stuff on your resume that you hated doing, unless you have no other choice (maybe you hated the whole job). If there are 2 other bullets, you're fine.
• This once-over primes you for the rest of the work and later editing but you don't have to make the updates right now. (I usually mark up my paper and then continue work on my computer.)

Draft your professional overview

Your professional overview showcases your experience, skills, knowledge, and what you can contribute to the company in 2-4 sentences. Seems impossible.

• Think about:
  • Themes that popped out while you were going over your resume
  • Similar duties across jobs
  • Any kind of 'narrative' or patterns you can piece together ("I got involved and things got so much better for the support teams")
    • Try not to get stuck in the story you tell yourself and look at the story your resume plainly tells. Your interviewers don't know the story you tell yourself until you get to the interview stage.
    • If you can't get out of your head (same), this may be where you'd like to ask someone for help as third-party perspective.
• The job bullets explain specific projects you contributed to that showcases certain skills required for that job. Likewise, the overview summarizes the experience and knowledge gained from doing those projects, and how that makes you hirable. It may take some reflection and field-specific research to understand what to highlight and what brings the most value to the job you're applying to.
• When you create your draft, it may just include a few key points that you want or a list of ideas. It doesn't have to be perfect yet.
• I recommend not using templated language for this section but if it helps in drafting, here are some key points:
  • Introduce yourself as the job your experience qualifies you for - not necessarily this specific title, but it should be similar. I could be applying for a "Technical Writer" position but my resume calls me a "Documentation Specialist." I have a lot of experience in technical writing that shows in my resume but my experience qualifies me for tech writer positions that require doc and workflow management too.
  • Provide the amount of experience you have in your field (you can be general like "over 5 years").
  • 2-3 things you specialize in: this is what you are BEST at. What have you gotten most praise for in your work history? For these I try to highlight only stuff I like doing.
  • Another handful of things you're also good at, with an emphasis on what you can deliver. ("Hard working" isn't a deliverable, but "creating actionable documentation" is.) This shows the hiring manager that you're action-oriented and not just focused on the process.
  • Wrap up with a brief statement on how your experience makes you unique. This is probably the hardest part and another place to perhaps ask for advice. Sometimes this doesn't come to me until later after other resume things are done and I have a tighter grasp on my summary.

Update the job bullet points

You've got all your notes from the first draft and it's a huge mess and way too many pages. Now it's time to refine.

• Pull up an "action words" list for resumes (I'm not going to link one because the recommendations constantly change) and see how many of those you can tie to the notes you have so far. These will become the first word in the bullet.
  • Make sure you have a variety of these words and don't duplicate within the same job.
  • Reading down just the first words, my resume says: Led, designed, streamlined, directed, translated, authored, developed, supported, executed, optimized, delivered, applied... sounds very impressive, right? You have no idea what I did, but I did it powerfully.
• Think of ways you can mention metrics or value. You don't need a metric in literally every bullet, but it'd be good to have at least one for every job. Even if you don't have specific numbers, start writing down ideas of where you could add things about the impact of your work. Metrics and value depend a lot on your field, so I recommend looking up specifics, but to give some ideas from my history:
  • If you work on sites, how many monthly unique viewers? Do you have metrics on engagement over time - has it increased? How many posts do you add monthly?
  • If you write guides, how many people/teams use them? What types of users does your work impact (various technical levels), end user only, etc?
  • If you do tickets, how many do you do on average and how does that compare to your colleagues (if that is transparent to you)? Do you QA your own work - can you ensure 100% accuracy? You might want to see how you can do reporting in your ticket system.
  • If you had temporary or contract work, how many tools/technologies did you have to learn at an intermediate level within a short amount of time?
  • If you refine processes or work in operations, how many employees does your work impact?
• On metrics - do NOT pull numbers out of your ass, they might check with your references and if you claim 100% accuracy but that person remembers cleaning up after you a lot... well. If you don't have a metric, don't use one. I've also been asked before how I got that metric so it's worth being honest to get the chance to excitedly explain your nerdy reporting processes. In the last bullet of this list I give an example of value add without metrics.
• Recruiters use keywords in the applicant tracking systems (ATS), so make sure your bullets include good ATS keywords so they can find you. You can find lists online and search specific to your industry or the position.
• When you refine the first draft, it might end up incredibly repetitive but you can update it in the next version. Don't burn yourself out trying to get the perfect bullet (yet).
• Again I don't recommend using templated language but if it helps in drafting, here's what I try to do: Did a thing for these things which are important for these reasons and impacted this or that audience positively in some way (aka what value did it add).
  • Did a thing: Directed content strategy and governance
  • for these things: for multiple SharePoint sites and document libraries
  • important for these reasons: ensuring accuracy and usability across resources
  • impacted this or that audience: used by 100+ users annually.
  • value add: Established maintenance processes to keep guides, schedules, and training materials current while empowering contributors to sustain content quality.

Draft 3 (Final)

People will see this. It's the one you'll share with people for suggestions and input (if you do that kind of thing). Once you're done with this one, it should be only minor updates ahead. It usually takes me about 5 hours to do the third draft, most of the work is already done and this is finalizing a lot of things. There won't really be a "4th draft," it'll just be minor adjustments after this one is done.

Unless you're very interested in seeing the step-by-step over time and creating 'versions' of each draft, you do not need to save a new file for your third draft. I don't feel like I need to save any of the info in the second draft but if you do, then go ahead. If you kept Draft 1, you can move some of the metric info over there so you have that for future reference.

Review second draft

Review the second draft with a 'red pen' or equivalent technology.

• All the same guidelines as before when you reviewed Draft 1.
• By now I'm also starting to think about what kind of stuff might come up in an interview, so I make notes about that for later. (I'll probably have to make a second article for using the resume during interview prep.) This includes figuring out how to make a bullet into a strength/weakness, how I can use one of these as an example of a difficult interaction, etc.
• I point out words that are missing mysteriously but definitely should be there, cross out other stuff (like how my second draft was missing any mention of the word 'operations' and I had duplicate communication skills in my summary).
• I highlight visibly where metrics or information is missing so I don't miss these in finalization.
• Ensure tool lists are down to 1 line. If you're using 2 columns, your line just got shorter. Keep that in mind.

Finalize job bullet points

Fill out missing information and get your bullets into shape.

• If you've been putting off reporting and research, now is the time to do it (sorry). Fill out and finalize the highlighted metrics or details that were missing.
• How you present your job bullets and how many to include depend on best practices in your industry and I don't want to go into that stuff here. I chose to do up to five bullets for my current position and three or less for all others. This keeps my most relevant experience down to 2 pages and ensures I only highlight the most important, most relevant stuff, with emphasis on recency.
• Note or star the largest, most visible work, or the bullets you want to include as a highlight of your experience so far. You can mention these in the professional overview or keep them visible to work into the interview.
• After you're done, these should need only minor updates from here on out.

Finalize professional overview

If you didn't already, it's time to turn your notes into a professional sounding elevator pitch about how amazing you are, even if it feels like you aren't.

• Think of the overview as a way to summarize to your future self (the person updating your resume again) where you are at this point in time. Yes, you still are writing for a stranger, but you still want to stay true to who you are and how you will be in the job. Because this summarizes your past and advertises what you'll provide in the future, it needs to somehow sound genuine and not like you're applying to be CFO with no experience in accounting.
• This says: Here's what I've done, here's what I learned, and here's how I can provide value to you in concrete ways that are unique given my background. Maybe you spent a lot of your experience in customer service and you're going for something less visible. Those customer service skills will still take you far and you can emphasize conflict resolution, active listening, professionalism, and empathy as unique contributors in a variety of roles.
• Here's another opportunity for an online search: Find out what the expectations are surrounding the professional summary. Some fields will want to see your tools list here, not by each job like I did.
  • Some may prefer a more technical, less narrative-leaning overview. Follow those best practices, not my suggestions.
  • If there are no best practices or you're not sure what your "field" is yet, use transferable skills. I like to highlight these because they tell someone I can be flexible in different types of job duties and provide services across the whole job description (not just one that I point out).
  • Transferable skills can be applied in multiple contexts. An easy example: I write user guides for support staff on a specific learning technology. From this statement, you can gather that I have transferable skills in writing, technical communication, and using the learning technology; I could use this as a foundation to learn a job involving those requirements/tools.
• After you're done, this should only need minor updates depending on job postings.

Finalize skills list

Slim the skills summary to 6-8 if you didn't already.

• Make sure all skills are mentioned in the resume and in the job description. (This is also good interview prep, make sure it all ties in so you can reference your resume and what you prepared any time they bring anything up.)
• After you're done, this should only need minor updates depending on job postings.

Finalize design and the rest of the resume

Make any final touches on the design and update everything else.

• I don't mean to minimize the rest of the information on your resume, but it's not what people are reading to see if you should have this job. It's important to have it there so they know, but it's not the meat of the content.
• Make sure all content is clean, clear, and easy to read, with good spacing in margins and accessible color choices. If someone is colorblind and your font is too light, they might be able to read your resume at all.
• Basically the goal of this item is to make sure you don't have to tweak formatting or any of the other content again unless you get more education or change your phone number (other than the sections mentioned above).

Cover Letter

I take a few days off after this, then I write the cover letter. There's no complex drafting process for this because it doesn't take me that long, and I'd already done all the work/analysis when preparing my resume.

The cover letter, to me, says: Here's why you should take time to look at my resume.

• Find a template that matches your resume or just save your resume as a new file and then update it to cover letter so you can keep the formatting.
• It doesn't repeat the Professional Overview, but it's a chance to highlight other skills in the same way. Here's what I've learned, here are some other things I've done that might interest you, and here are some other things I've delivered/accomplished due to that work.
• I highlight something about a recent job that is incredibly relevant to the position. The work I did here proves that I can do the work in the job description, and this is why. I also try to mention something I like about the job because showing enthusiasm never hurt anyone.
• The closeout re-emphasizes how I can contribute in a 1-liner that always makes me feel cheesy. You will never not feel cheesy writing this, we all do, get over it.