ANDREW LIMBONG, HOST:
So new year, new you, new job? If you’re feeling like it’s time for a professional change, one of the first things you’ll need to do is update your resume. Career coach Cynthia Pong says, you never know when the right job will come along, and you’ll want to send that resume over without delay.
CYNTHIA PONG: It’s kind of one of those be ready so you don’t have to get ready type of things.
LIMBONG: But getting a resume together can be daunting and stressful. No worries, though. NPR’s got your back on this one. Here’s Life Kit host Marielle Segarra.
MARIELLE SEGARRA, BYLINE: All right. Our goal here is to bring you one step closer to the job you want. See how I summarized there at the top of the piece? That’s what you want to do on your resume. After you put down your personal info – name, email, phone number – at the very top, Pong says you should write a several-sentence summary.
PONG: So you can think of this as your mission statement.
SEGARRA: And this is a way to show the hiring manager why you’d be a great fit for this job.
PONG: Especially if you’re someone who other folks tend to underestimate what you bring to the table, or you’re doing something nontraditional in your career, or you’re a career changer, something like that.
SEGARRA: Pong, by the way, is the founder of the career coaching firm Embrace Change. So she says about three to five lines here, really a few sentences at most – and this is who you are professionally, in a nutshell. You can start with some adjectives – engaging, thorough, creative – and then your role or desired role.
PONG: And then you could say, you know, podcast host for mission-driven audio initiatives and organizations. And then I would say something like, excels at X, Y, and Z.
SEGARRA: And the last sentence of the summary can be something about where you’re going with your career. You know, is there an arc to it? Do you know what kind of roles you’d like next? After the summary, Pong…
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