Multiple Versions of Your Resume

“I am going to need at least three different versions of my resume.” While it would make smart financial sense for me to simply say "yes" to the above (very common) request, the truth is that clients rarely need multiple resume versions. What they really need is one agile, easy to target resume. And as I have written about before, you should always be targeting your resume toward each specific position.

Let’s use a recent client as an example... John got in touch because he wanted to pursue opportunities in business analysis and IT solutions development. He was certain he needed two versions of his resume to accomplish this. He didn’t.

In John’s case, those two areas of expertise complement each other very well and are both natural extensions of his experience. So instead of creating multiple versions of his resume, we developed one easy-to-target version that highlighted those aspects of his background that were relevant to both business analysis and IT solutions development. By working in some customizable introductory elements, he was able to easily target the resume so readers were prepared to “see” his expertise in a specific area.

There are times, though, when it makes sense to have multiple versions of your resume. I recently worked with a client whose background was equal parts administrative support and social media marketing. Those are pretty different career paths. Because her goal was to lean further into social media marketing, it made sense to create a resume that shined a spotlight on that aspect of her experience while downplaying her background in administrative support. However, she felt like she might also still pursue administrative support roles. Because we had limited the focus on administrative support in her social media marketing resume, it made sense to create a second version where we shifted the spotlight to her administrative support experience.

If you think you need multiple versions of your resume, reach out. You may be surprised to learn that one, customizable resume will serve you better than multiple versions ever could.