The JobSync Blog
Tailoring Your Resume to Who You Are, not to a Position
February 6, 2012
Recently, the international firm Nicoll Curtin Recruitment conducted a survey of hiring managers and jobseekers to try and see what companies are sensing about jobseekers as well as recruiters. Some of these results are startling, as they undermine broad assumptions about how efficient the job market is, and they also underline how inefficiently many jobseekers apparently are behaving in their job searches. And while Nicoll Curtin’s survey has a more international flair to it, one of their survey results mirrors what one sees in the U.S.
And that is vast gulf between the low percentage of jobseekers who consistently tailor their resume for a position and the high percentage of those who realize that tailoring one’s resume to a specific job increases the chances of landing that job. According to the results from Nicoll Curtin Recruitment’s survey, only 17% of jobseekers consistently edit their resume to better fit a position, despite the fact that 68% are aware that this improves their odds of securing a new job And this notion is a frequent crying point for one job consultant after another both here and abroad.
While it’s true that tailoring a resume to a position can improve one’s chances of getting a job, does it really enhance one’s odds of getting a job they are a good fit for?
Hardly.
In the course of trying to fit a position, jobseekers all too often twist and distort who they are as opposed to making minor edits that highlight their better fitting qualifications. If they are lucky enough to make it through the recruitment process and land a job, they will ultimately suffer poor job satisfaction. But the other reality is that most savvy hiring mangers and recruiters will see through their efforts to reconfigure and reinvent themselves in the name of securing any job. Ultimately, this is a waste of time for everyone involved, and this notion of tailoring one’s resume to fit a position also flies in the face of another standard rule of careers: Never let a job define you.
We couldn’t agree more. You should define a job, but the only way to do that is by making a definitive impact in a position. And the only way one can do that is by being in a great-fitting job to begin with.
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