Improving Your Resume

A New Research Tool to Help You Understand Demand

Last night, Corsair’s Technology completed the beta trial of their new Resume Improvement Service known as RISE. This is their second product offering overall and their second offering in the professional development space. Disclaimer- they are the sister company of Corsair’s Publishing.

Your Resume Really Isn’t For Storage

Many people’s resumes are poorly targeted. They bare a striking resemblance to the attic, the supply closet, or the utility room. They are a place where old skills are collected, things seem a bit cluttered, and suffer too much from out of sight/out of mind. There is a great excuse for your cluttered closet and that dusty attic. The things you store there are not in demand.

The utility room may be the better analogy for a typical resume. The utility room holds some important things; the water heater, the HVAC, perhaps even the breaker box. Around this myriad of equipment, people often install shelves, stack boxes, and hide old appliances they aren’t ready to part with quite yet. Sadly, this describes far too many resumes.

Your resume isn’t a storage room. Yes, you need to display your work history, but a resume is meant to be a short (and compelling) summary. Has anyone ever looked in one of your closets and declared, “This is so compelling! What a great summary of your life”?

It Is Really All About Demand

We store things that we don’t need regularly or sometimes that we want to hide. Your resume is more of a showcase, it should spotlight the things you want to display. Better, it is the window display at the local jewelry store, it should showcase the things you are trying to sell. Better still, showcase the things that people want to buy!

What do employers want to buy? What skills and experience are in the greatest demand? How do you know which skills to showcase on your resume and what experience to leave in storage? You need to understand demand.

Understanding How Your Resume Meets Demand

Understanding demand is fundamentally difficult. You just need to read a few thousand job postings. This will give you all the information you need. If you are thinking it is more fun to clean your attic, you are not.

Fortunately, there are headhunters. Some are fantastic and knowledgeable… at filling the few dozen jobs sitting in their queue. They really just don’t have the incentive to help you to the extent you likely need. Most headhunters thrive on how cluttered our resumes are. This makes them essential as middlemen in the employment market.

There is always private, public, and college placement services. These folks can be very helpful. They have plenty of resources, are often free, and are there specifically to help you find a job. So if this is an option for you, be sure to see what they have to offer.

RISE Above

If all of this sounds time-consuming and less than optimal, there is a new option for you. The Resume Improvement Service (RISE) now offered at corsairs.technology/rise may just do the trick.

RISE has access to thousands of job postings for most job titles. Their proprietary technology collects all of that demand and compares it to the skills, experience, and terminology (SET) supplied on your resume. Optimized algorithms target the words on your resume that are most meaningful to recruiters, managers, and even ARS.

Within a few days (for now), the customer is delivered a personalized readout. This is divided into three SETs. One describes the high demand items that are NOT on your resume, another those that are, and finally the SET that may just be clutter.

RISE empowers you to target and improve your resume. It gives you the knowledge you need without the time-consuming necessity of reading hundreds of job posting. For those of you wondering what skills or experience to pursue, it can help you target high-demand skills in today’s market. For those who are returning to the job scene, it can help you reconnect with the terminology that is more popular today.

Decide for yourself. Learn more here.