New Year, New Resolutions

It’s 2016 and time to work on your career.

Much of the advice I’ve been giving, and will continue to press for, is echoed in many pieces I read. For example, here’s a piece from Microsoft recruiters for the new year. It contains many things I’d ask you to do, but I don’t want to overwhlem you.

I like taking small steps, baby steps. With that in mind, let’s look to the year with one new resolution: keep your resume up to date. It’s quick, easy, and low impact to your life.

I’ve written about touching your resume, and you should start today. Take the 30 seconds to look at it and the five minutes to update anything new. If there’s nothing new, maybe there’s something you can reword or tighten up. Being clear and concise will help you stand out over the other bland, boring, wordy resumes out there.

Reminders

Take two minutes right now to set a quarterly reminder. Create an appointment in your personal, not work, calendar. After all, you want to this to follow you across jobs. Here’s what mine looks like:

When it goes off, do what you’ll do today. Pop open your resume and look at it. Does it reflect who you are, and more importantly, who you want to be? If so, take 30 seconds and look forward to what you might change or do in the next quarter. Or why you haven’t improved things.

Make a few notes in the appointment that remind you for the next time of a few things:

1. Items I want to tackle moving forward
2. Reasons why I have’t changed in the last quarter

These are invaluable for looking back at the past and forward. You can refer to these throughout your year to help motivate you.

Don’t go a year without making positive change in your career. Even if you don’t change jobs, have a few reasons that you’re becoming better to show your boss at review time.