Your resume is doing too much (and not enough)

One resume for every job isn't working. Here's what actually is.

Most EAs I speak to have a master resume.

Long. Detailed. Covers everything they've ever done. They're proud of it (rightly so!). BUT.. then they send it to every job they apply for, maybe swap out a few bullet points, and wonder why they're not hearing back.

I've been doing a lot of resume reviews lately, and this comes up every single time.

One resume I looked at recently had a skills section sitting right there on the front page. Good format, yes. But the content tripped her up. See, it said "meeting preparation." The role she was going for used the words "board governance" throughout the job description. Same work. The ATS system just wasn't going to make that leap for her. Five-minute fix. But only if you know to look for it.

Another one I reviewed belonged to someone with twenty years of experience. Genuinely impressive career. But when I looked at it, her most relevant achievement was buried so deep in the detail that you'd almost miss it entirely. She'd planned a conference for 140 staff members, which is exactly the kind of work the role she was applying for wanted. That line should have been front and centre on page one. Instead it was disappearing somewhere in the middle of page two.

This is what happens when we send our master resume to every application without really touching it.

The content of your resume isn't your problem. Sending it unedited is.

A master resume is a holding document. It's where you keep everything so nothing gets forgotten. But it is not what you send out. What you send out is a targeted version built specifically for the role in front of you, using the language that role is actually looking for.

When a hiring manager reads your resume, they're asking one question: is this person the answer to my problem? A recruiter gets about six to ten seconds on a first pass. That's it. If your resume is generic enough to apply to 20 different roles without changing, it's probably not answering that question for any of them.

Here's what tailoring actually looks like in practice.

You read the job ad closely. Not skimming it. Actually reading it. You note the language they use, the priorities they name, the problems they're clearly trying to solve. Then you reorder, rewrite, and reshape your resume so the most relevant experience is front and centre, in language that matches theirs.

Bring what's most relevant to that specific role onto page 1 of your resume.

One role might need you to lead with your stakeholder management. Another might need your process improvement work at the top. The same experience, told in a different order with different emphasis, reads completely differently to the person reviewing it.

See you next week,

Trinity

P.S. If you're currently in a job search — or you can feel one coming — I've just launched something new specifically for senior EAs who need to move quickly. You can read about it here: The Relaunch

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Trinity James is a Career Coach, founder of Views Professional Development and the APAC Lead for EA How To — a professional development membership for Executive Assistants across the globe.