I need to sit down and update my resumes (I have a few depending on the specific job I’m going for). I know that styles change every few years and that’s one reason I need to update them. The other is that with over 2 decades in my field and the variety of tasks I have done, I am at a lost on how to even organize all of my skills and accomplishments. Does anyone have ideas on resume organization that would look modern in 2019?
Since the OP is looking for advice, let’s move this to IMHO.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
For what field? I’m in the same boat, so would like to know too. But some encourage brevity and others length.
Generally you break it into Experience, Education, Skills sections. The order varies, but generally the important one at the top. I am on the fence about an Objective, that one goes into and out of fashion a lot.
I sat down with some notes and dates from my Wife and created a very nice resume for her by using an online service.
It was VERY easy. Change the style on the fly etc.
I’m glad you have more than one resume.
I used to hire a lot of people, so I’ve seen a ton of resumes.
I wouldn’t worry about format too much - most resumes get munged by the company resume tracking system, and I’ve seen a lot of formatting get trashed. (Not true if you are looking for a job in design, of course.)
The skills section is a good place to put the keywords that will get scanned by the system. Education is pro forma, especially if you have 20 years of experience.
The critical section is experience. It is a good place to put quantifiable benefits you created for your companies. What you did is good, what the impact was is better. As a hiring manager the two things I want to see is how you are going to be a good investment for us and how are you going to make my life easier.
More important than any resume is networking. After 20 years in your field you have lots of good contacts, right? I got my last job, at a high level, basically without a resume - I had one but it wasn’t important. I got it through networking and visibility in my field.
Exactly this for someone with decades of experience.