Sometimes Busted Résumés Still Work

So you got a job with that tired resume of yours. Congrats.

Bad resumes still work in some cases but it all depends on the job and opportunity. I know of some people who are managers and directors and they have no resume at all. Some clients haven’t had a resume in over 10 years or more.

Recently, I was talking to an HR professional while attending the Tennessee State Society for Human Resources Management Conference in Sevierville. She told me that her organization hires thousands of people and promote hundreds annually. She went on to say that they do not use resumes, they use profiles and not LinkedIn profiles either – they have an internal talent management which uses profiles. She told me that the problem they are having is that people are not updating their profiles so they look terrible.

So if people don’t like resumes and refuse to maintain them, and they don’t update their LinkedIn profiles (some of them are just horrible – embarrassing) maybe people just don’t like updating anything.

Resumes, LinkedIn, Profiles, Websites, Aboutme biographies, or whatever you can think of unless there is an automated maintenance process people will not take care of it…just look at credit reports!

And that’s the reason why your busted resume still works. See recruiters receive on average 80 resumes for each open position. And since 99.5% of all resumes suck (and the .5% is generous) , recruiters have no choice but to read your tired, outdated, poorly formatted, unattractive resume.

The thing is, it comes down to the best of the worst – meaning of all the bad resumes which ones are not as bad as others.

I’ve mentioned this before; I never started out to be a resume writer however once I saw how important resumes are – it clicked for me.  We can call for the death of the resume all we want, we can hope there will be a better way but think of it like this, just as you don’t like reading job description after job description before applying to a job; hiring managers read resume after resume and it gets old quick – give them something good to look at.

Believe it or not, resumes have changed with the times, for instance QR codes are not as taboo as they used to be, links to social media accounts are acceptable and with LinkedIn it’s preferred. Full addresses are no longer standard because no one sends offer letters or even rejection letters anymore. The objective statement and the summary of qualifications are streamlined and less wordy.  And you only need 10 -12 years of solid work history.

Get your old resume fixed by someone, me or any other resume writer that you trust. Do your due diligence on Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook. There are dozens of services out there, use the hashtags #resumes or #resumewriter on social media – find help – your career is too important to leave it to chance and a busted resume.

 

Join the ResumeCrusade - contact me ‘[email protected]’