How Often Do You Update Your Resume — and What Has Given You Pause?

young professional woman hides behind her resume; she is wondering how often she should update her resume

How often do you update your resume — and what, if anything, has given you pause? Have you wondered about including newer volunteer experience vs. older work experience? Which hobbies to include? How (or whether) to describe your previous jobs in a way that fits the company’s ad?

Readers’ Advice for the Easiest Ways to Keep Your Resume Updated

It’s been years since we last discussed keeping your resume updated, but here are some great tips the readers offered:

Keep track of the numbers as you go. A few different readers mentioned this, with one noting:

“For me one of the hardest things to pin down is the concrete, hard numbers details recommended for a resume (project XYZ saved the company $A.B million dollars over C years!) since I’m not usually good at promoting myself that way, so I try to jot those down in my list as the projects happen or as I’m asked to make the cost saving projections.”

Another reader agreed that numbers were the way to go:

I try to use statistics and numbers as much as possible. Rather than “exceeded expectations” (which I see on a million resumes) I use specifics, like delivered the event 20% under budget with a 10% increase in attendance.

A third reader chimed in to add more figures to keep track of, like the “number of people you managed, and the size of your budget or the earnings of your business unit, etc.”

Keep a master resume just for yourself. One reader noted that she kept a master resume “that gets updated regularly whether it’s after starting a new job or completing a certain project that you think deserves its own entry. The Master resume is just mine, to keep a tally, so that when I am applying for a new position I can refer to it and pick only those things that are relevant to what I’m applying for.”

Don’t look at your resume as set in stone. One reader noted that she started her resume from scratch after every new job title. She went on to explain,

I consider the next job I would like to do and then assess the sections on my resume based on that. If a previous achievement, work experience, internship does not contribute towards getting closer to that next job, then I remove it. I can always bring it up during interviews.

Also, I browse through LinkedIn profiles for the job function I am targeting and get inspiration from the different descriptions.

For achievements, I have a folder called “bragbook” and I copy in it my significant achievements throughout the year.

Such great advice, as always!

Here’s my $.02, for what it’s worth…

How Often I Update My Resume

Back when I was a practicing lawyer, I kept a running list of my latest accomplishments to consider adding to my resume, and tried to assess where the weaknesses were. Did I wish I could say I’d done more depositions? OK, let’s try to get more experience there, then…

That said, I have barely updated my resume since I began creating content full time, to be honest — but if/when I do I think the resume will be highly customized to each job I’m interested in, highlighting the skills and experiences that would best serve me in the job. (Especially if I were submitting job applications online, I would definitely try to mirror the job application.)

Readers, over to you — how often do you update your resume?

Some of Our Previous Discussions on Resumes…

Stock photo via Deposit Photos / stockasso.

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