If your CV is tired and out-of-date, it’s not going to present you in the best light. Here are four signs you need to give it a refresh.
Your CV is a work-in-progress, and needs to be refreshed at various stages throughout your IT career. The obvious time to do it is when you get a new job, but there are actually many other circumstances that can leave your CV out-of-date and ineffective. Don’t let the document grow stale, you want it to showcase your professional development at the point your are now, not where you were years ago.
Here are four signs that it’s time to give your resume a makeover.
1. It goes way back
Does your CV detail all the positions you’ve ever had, right back to the part time job you did in high school? if so, you might want to consider updating it to make it more relevant. Recruiters do not want to have to sift through a stream of outdated information to get to the parts that reflect you current experience. Leave out the position form 10 years ago and focus on your latest jobs, providing the most information for the most recent ones and less for those that go farther back.
2. Missing social media details
So many employers are now looking up candidates online that it has become expected for you to provide your social media contact details. Neglecting to do so is delaying the inevitable, and may mean that your profiles contain information you wouldn’t want an employer to see.
Update your LinkedIn, Facebook and any other accounts to ensure they are professional, and do recruiters a favour by supplying these details in your CV. Who knows, a shared contact in your LinkedIn network or an insightful post about your industry could be the thing that piques an employer’s interest of employers.
3. Your situation has changed
A new position is not the only way your employment situation can change. Perhaps you took on a special one-off project for your company, received positive feedback on your performance, or your reporting structure was altered. These things should be reflected on your CV, as they can help to recommend you and demonstrate the progress and experience you gained within a single job rather than just between them.
4. You have different goals
Your CV should always be targeted towards your current career objectives to be really impactful. If your goals have changed since the time you originally wrote it, it may be time to give that CV a refresh and realign it with where you want to go next.
So if your CV has become dated, renovating it could open you up to new opportunities and help your IT recruiter find you the right job.