How To Make Adjustments to Your Resume to Increase Your Callbacks

Prior to the common use of online recruitment, a job seeker would write a resume and cover letter on a word processor and then go to the local printing office and order 100 copies. Then the resumes would be sent out by snail mail and the wait would begin. How times have changed! Today, printed resumes are infrequently used. Most resumes today are transmitted electronically. One of the advantages of online resumes is that it is much easier to make changes when a job search campaign warrants doing so. (Making changes to a paper resume was a hassle as well as an expense.)

Under what conditions would a job search campaign warrant you making a change to your resume? This question tends to confuse some job seekers because they see a resume as a job history or skills document, rather than a competitive marketing tool that's similar to a product brochure. The "key" word here is competitive. Different job campaigns have different levels of competition. To succeed in obtaining callbacks from online resume postings or applications, one usually needs to make adjustments based upon the level of competition you are likely to have.

How does job competition actually work? How do you know whether you will experience more or less job competition? Well, there are three types of competitive job campaigns. They are:

• Position
• Industry
• Combination (Position + Industry)

Position Campaigns
A positional campaign (commonly called the ‘lateral move’) is where a job candidate is looking for another position that is within the same industry or business line and is also the same type of job with same job title. For example: an administrative assistant in the financial industry who is looking for another administrative assistant job in the financial industry. Since skills, experience and corporate culture are likely to be the same in different companies within the same industry, this type of campaign has the least amount of job competition. It's also the easiest way to change jobs. The resume you used for your last job search could very well work for you in the next search. Of course, you would need to update your experience, skills and any training or education you obtained. 

Industry Campaigns
An industry campaign is where a job candidate is looking for the same type of job (title) or role but in a different industry. This happens during recessions a lot or when an industry is restructuring and lots of people are laid off. For example, an admin assistant with financial industry experience who was laid off and is now looking for the same type of job in an engineering consulting company or a manufacturing company or a doctor’s office would have this type of job campaign. This type of job search campaign is more competitive than the positional campaign because (a) skills gaps and (b) cultural differences and (c) the people who already have experience in this new industry are preferred over people who do not have this new industry experience. This means your resume needs to be adjusted for this new industry. To do so, review the job ad again. Look for language that suggest "industry experience." This could be a duty or it could be a productivity tool or even an industry certification. You need to close the "industry" gap as much as possible in order to compete against the industry veterans who are on the hunt for a new job.

Combination Campaigns
A combination campaign is a combination of a positional and industry campaign. This is where someone is looking for a different job (title) or role in a different industry. For example, an administrative assistant in the financial industry who is now looking to be a  project manager in the IT industry because of her new PMP certification. So, she has a competitive hill to climb. Not only is she competing for a new type of job, this new job is in a company in a different industry, which is likely to have different requirements and a different culture. It’s the most competitive type of job search campaign. To succeed in this type of campaign, your resume needs to communicate "rare" skills and capabilities. For this administrative assistant, she needs to find positions that need a project manager who has administrative assistant experience. Your resume needs to be much more detailed; that is, you need to overwrite your resume in order to completely convince the recruiter that you are better than the standard position & industry veterans who have applied to the same job.

Making resume adjustments is sometimes a trial and error procedure. In fact, sometimes the adjustments you will make are subtle. But, the goal is to mirror as closely as possible the profile that was used to create the job ad you read. These days employers are seeking the perfect job candidate. To do so, they look for the "right" person who matches not only the job's duties but also the work environment and the current project team. This, of course, introduces more competition into the hiring process that the old days of paper resumes.