In a world of uncertainty, we don’t know when we will need our CVs to be ready next. Yes, there is LinkedIn for the socially active ones, but how many update it? The majority of LinkedIn profiles describe their tenure with past employers with just designations. It’s an irony that we spend very little time to describe ourselves in the world where self-projection is considered a potent weapon.

The last time I wrote a resumé ‘peacefully’ was 22 years ago, when I was just out of college and did not worry about what needs to be in a resumé, added to the fact that the contents did not exceed a page. Recently when one of my prospective investors asked me to send a one-pager about myself, I realised life had come full circle. One page is all that matters. Anything more than that is information overload, nobody is going to read beyond that, so don’t waste your time writing long resumés. I am not kidding, the average time a recruiter takes to read a resumé is less than a minute. Not that the recruiters have got bot power; just that they are mandated to look for things they need, not what you want to convey — precisely the reason resumé reading and matching should soon be done by machines.

Will we still need resumés for the future? I reckon yes. The medium we use to depict ourselves may change, but we will still need to talk about our past. As much as hiring is done keeping the future potential in mind we still need an indicator of the past. That’s where a resumé is a great starting point. When did you last write your resumé for a job? I wrote mine eight years ago, but struggled with the content as I wasn’t sure what my next employer wanted to see. In my view the resumé writing in the current context is flawed as

Often, we start by editing our last resumé or copy/paste from similar looking profiles of others, as we attend to our CV only when a recruiter calls us.

We outsource it to so called professionals for a fee, either because we are lazy or we can afford it

Average length of resumés for working professionals today is about three long pages. We add all the details of our life and work and make it too lengthy for it to hold anybody’s interest,

If it’s your resumé why won’t you spend a couple of hours to write a page on your own from scratch as the best person who could describe you is you? Yes, there are some nuances, but they are all common sense rather than rocket science.

We thought LinkedIn would eliminate resumés. It hasn’t, yet, though it has given them a different dimension. We have pundits telling us that digital resumés are here, video resumés are the future, but I think the standard one-pager is an important part of your description. I know LinkedIn does some justice to profiles, but it also ‘curtails’ your creativity to certain extent. Video CVs will not work for many of us who are camera-shy and may become discriminatory in many ways, just like adding your photo to the resumé enhances or diminishes it based on who is seeing it.

So, what’s the secret to resumé writing in the future?

Write your one-pager resumés once a year.

Make them short and precise, be consistent with what you have on LinkedIn. Some employers have all the time in the world to see both.

Your achievements are more important than your job description which is easy to reference check later. Yes, the product, technologies are important to mention, but you will know that better.

It’s your resumé, not your employer’s, so don’t waste time detailing what they do. If you are working for not so famous organisations, just mention their URL for people to click on if they want to know more.

Despite all the rhetoric above, let me state this: There is nothing like working hard and making an impact on your organisation. The good word spreads and you will get calls from people who will be in awe of you. Subsequently when they meet you the reference and reputation gets the better of you than the contents of the CV sent before that. Your own career track record in the form of assurance and confidence will take care of the interview needs.

We don’t need our CVs when we are at the peak of our success. Most often we prepare CVs when we are not performing or out of favour with our current employer. For those rainy days, we had better be prepared with a well-written resumé.

(The author who was till recently the MD of Kelly Services & Kelly OCG India is a prolific commentator on workplace dynamics.)

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