Kimberly Elliott
Sep 6, 2018 · 7 min read

Upcycle Your Resume to Zoom Ahead

Pick your resume up and take a sniff. Is it stale? Does it smell like 2014? That’s bad, friend. If you’re looking for a job, you know you need a fresh resume and this post will help. But even if you have a job, you still need to roll up your sleeves and upcycle your resume. Upcycling is key to hunting for jobs, prepping for annual reviews, especially if you include impact numbers (and you must), charting career paths, and moving ahead at work. The purpose of upcycling is not just to tack in new titles and look for typos. Upcycling means thinking hard about what you do and produce, looking at your work in new ways, making the impacts of your work visible, and being ready to talk about the impacts of your work. Take what you have, turn it around, and make it shine. Many people don’t know how to do that.

BEFORE: Reordered copy paper, paper clips, tape, pens, printer cartridges, chairs, desks, computers, phones, etc.; searched online for suppliers, found best prices; set up a closet and stocked it with supplies; cleaned and reorganized supply closet weekly; replaced out-of-order items.

AFTER: Established an efficient, cost-effective system that kept supplies organized for high usage by 400+ staff, reducing expensive emergency purchases by 95%.

Recently, I worked on 10 performance reviews for staff I supervised or guided in projects. Their jobs varied, but they shared one trait. They could not describe their strengths and impacts. I had watched each person closely and could quantify the impacts of their work. They couldn’t. This is very common. I saw the same problem emerge when I reviewed 300+ resumes earlier in my career and led a team in crafting 200+ staff bios to advance business development goals. I wrote this post because people still ask me to work on their resumes. I know the road blocks they’ll hit, I want to help, but I don’t have time to help. My scheme is to send them this post, and then spend 4.5 minutes reviewing their resume and giving input. Enough about me. Here are 6 steps you should follow to upcycle your resume. Some are baby steps, and some are giant steps. Either way: You’ve got this.

Step 1: Procrastinate Productively. Go to Youtube and watch a podcast with comedians talking about their lives. You know you will put off upcycling your resume, so I’ve built it in as a step. If you need to procrastinate, this is the best thing to do before you attack your resume. Comedians spend a lot of time thinking about their work, branding and marketing themselves, trying new things, failing, reinventing themselves, and bouncing back. They speak clearly and concisely, and use very well-honed language. Listening to them talk will inspire you. Also, you need to laugh and loosen up before you do anything else. Go. Go now. Then pour yourself some coffee and move on to Step 2.

Step 2: Freshen Format. Don’t do any soul-searching or touch the words in your resume yet. Instead, take your resume and cram it into a new format. I have one format that I suggest you use. Go to Businessinsider.com and read the article, “17 Things That Make This An Excellent Resume.” Both the article and the resume example are on point. The format is streamlined and easy to scan, and there are great notes on each section. As you stuff your resume into the format, things will get messy. You may have headings with no text and a lot of weird surplus text. You may notice that your resume lacks the sample’s impact numbers and specificity. You may mutter to yourself, “I don’t have the same kind of job as ‘Joan E. Jobseeker’ and what kind of name is that?” All of this is good. Do the best you can with what you have. Leave some sections with headers and no text. Move jobs or text you’re not sure about to a no-man’s-land word jungle at the bottom. Take 20 minutes to create the shell , then move on to Step 3. If you don’t like the format, you can change it later.

Step 3: Review, Redo, Review, Redo. You might have started to massage your resume’s text, inspired by the Step 2 article. Maybe you saw an easy thing to tackle, or started to insert one-liners about employers or competencies? Cool. It’s also fine if you did not do that, because you will now. As the article mentions, you’ll need to tailor your resume to fit your experience and your field. If you work in a field that has very specific requirements for resumes — academic, research, or medical, for example — I am going to assume that you’re not reading this article. For many other professions, this format will help you keep text lean and makes it clear that you need to be specific and succinct. Although the format is meant for an early/mid-level worker, it gives more experienced workers a strong foundation to build upon. Before you complete the blank parts, it’s time to take a very close look at the text and ask yourself 10 questions:

1. Does my resume show me as I am today (rather than 5 or more years ago)?

2. Are all of my strengths, abilities, and knowledge and skills in my resume?

3. Have I included my recent accomplishments, and do I include numbers?

4. Have I linked to an online portfolio that shows my skills? (See Step 4.)

5. Are my blurbs about my jobs relevant to my current work and goals?

6. Have I explained absences from the workforce and career shifts?

7. Is my resume one or two pages?

8. Have I cut out microscopic details about my day-to-day work?

9. Do I use resume keywords and action verbs to describe my work?

10. Have I cut or reframed jobs that have nothing to do with my work/goals?

If you replied “Nope,” to any questions, you need to fix those things now and I’ve included links in the questions above to help guide you. When you’re done, move on to Step 4.

Step 4: Show Skills. It’s a visual world. Create an attractive, text-light online portfolio with samples of your work and add the URL to your resume. LinkedIn lets you add samples, and that’s great. But, it’s better to show more samples, in the format you choose. Online portfolios are a must if you’re a content strategist, like me. But, they benefit almost any professional. Include pivot tables, logic models, analytic reports, products, flyers, videos, webpages about projects that you lead, etc. Remove any confidential content and replace it with fake figures or text that show the same skills. Make and include infographics that display your annual output. These kinds of portfolios are handy for annual reviews, as well as job hunts, and they are fast, easy, and cheap. My favorite platform is Journo Portfolio, but there are many choices. With Journo, you can make your portfolio public, password-protect it, or share it with a secure link. Review your options, pick one, and quickly get up 1–2 pages that strongly show your skills. Then, move on to Step 5.

Step 5: Invite Input. Once you finish upcycling your resume and publish your portfolio, ask a fussy friend to review both. Get the most out of this review by giving your friend a few questions to answer. These questions might include:

  1. Where am I missing impact numbers?
  2. What text seems weak or confusing?
  3. What text reads like a list of day-to-day duties?
  4. How can I improve the visuals and text I’ve included in my portfolio?
  5. Can you easily navigate my portfolio — are there any broken links?

If you’re interested in a specific job, give your friend the announcement to read. Then ask: Have I covered the key requirements? Did I include all the important keywords? Am I showing relevant skills with my portfolio? Don’t be insulted when your friend gives you honest opinions. While it is the best policy, honesty can sting when you just want to hear, “It’s perfect.” You do not need to take every piece of your friend’s advice. Be open-minded, jot down your friend’s comments, and take your friend out for a meal. Wait a few days (or hours, if you’re on a tight timeline) and redo your resume one more time.

Step 6: Celebrate Completion and... Look at you! You’ve got an upcycled resume and a sweet online portfolio. Great work. Make sure your LinkedIn profile and all online bios match your upcycled resume. Celebrate in the manner you see fit. And, keep upcycling. Devote 10 minutes each week to thinking about the big picture of your work and identifying impacts to tweak or add. If you’re not sharing your resume, just type in rough drafts of bullets at the bottom of your resume and polish them when you’re ready. Keep building your online portfolio. Even if it’s not public, make it the best reflection of your output. As you move through the world of work, be guided by the following GPS: Think about where you are, think about where you want to be, and make sure your resume, LinkedIn profile, portfolio, and bio reflect that. You can always hire a resume expert but pick one who will teach you how to improve and maintain your resume. Best of luck and remember: You’ve got this.

Written by

Content strategist and author of We’re Not From Around Here and Now Departing.

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