Your resume is a marketing tool to sell you as the best candidate for the job. It’s best to tailor it to the specific job you are applying for, only put the most complimentary stuff on it, and always ensure potential employers have the most up-to-date info on you.
A resume you submit in paper form or as an email attachment can get outdated very quickly. What’s the best way to ensure job recruiters always have access to your most up-to-date resume? Make it available online on your own personal website.
First, you’ll want to update your resume.
As the year has progressed, you should have some significant material to add to your resume. Update your resume: If you’ve volunteered, interned, or joined a new club since you last updated it, add it in.
Finish building it up and then take it in to the career center for feedback.
The career center can help you craft the perfect resume. See if they have any upcoming resume workshops that can give you a chance to get your resume reviewed so you can further fine-tune it. You can also set up a meeting with someone in the career center and have them look it over and give you some pointers. There also may be someone in your major’s department who can do this as well, who may have better experience creating resumes for the specific field of work you are looking to get into.
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Other Resume Tips
- When summarizing previous work history, make sure you are listing what you accomplished, rather than sounding like a job description. Highlight your contributions: talk about your performance on the job. What did you contribute? How did you go above and beyond the basic job duties? Use strong action verbs.
- Let your personality shine through on your resume. While relevant job skills are important, employers like to see you have other interests as well. Don’t be afraid to list leadership positions, hobbies, or other things you’re passionate about.
- Use fonts that read well and look good in print or on screen, depending on the resume format you are submitting.
- When emailing a resume as an attachment, send a PDF version to ensure the formatting stays the same on any computer.
- Keep the resume to one page if possible.
Getting your Resume Online
Are you a real go-getter? Then this challenge is for you. It’ll take you about an hour or so to complete, but it will be well worth the effort and will really come in handy for your future job search.
Challenge: Create a personal website to post your resume.
When it comes to showcasing yourself online, a LinkedIN profile may be enough for some; then there's an about.me page for the creative types, but why not take it one step further with your own website?
Having your own personal website dedicated to hosting your resume is a great way to stand out and have a lasting impression on employers. Plus, the feeling of creating something and putting a live page up on the Internet for all to see is a thrill in itself.
Offering a good-looking resume on your own website rather than on a sheet of paper shows you’re ahead of the curve. Remember, it’s all about separating yourself from the hundreds of others who will be out there competing for the same job. How serious do you want to be taken when it comes to landing your desired job? Think about it: How many of your friends or classmates have a website for their resume?
It’s going to take a small investment on your part, about $6-$9 a month, (but you can get the first month for a penny when using the coupon code “1CENT” over at HostGator.com) a relatively small price to pay for what will really stand out in an innovative way.
Having your resume available online is great for the job search. Rather than sending attachments via email for jobs, you can simply email the URL of your personal website where the resume is posted. Also, you’ll be able to easily link to it from your online profiles, post it on business cards, and in any other correspondence you have with job recruiters. By making your resume available on the Internet you have the potential to reach an unlimited number of people.
Here's a quick guide on getting an HTML version of your resume up on your own website.
Create an online resume in 5 easy steps
Having a personal website dedicated just for your resume shows you’re serious about your career. This just speaks of professionalism and determination. You want your resume to be posted at firstnamelastname.com, something easy to remember that you can put on a business card.
Note: This short guide is designed as a super easy way of getting a nice looking resume up on your own website with the non-technical user in mind, without any knowledge of coding. After you get it up and running, you can expand your knowledge and the depth of your website at your choosing.
The steps outlined here should be able to be completed in about an hour and will cost you just a penny to get started. Give it a try!
Steps to take:
1. Go to HostGator.com
This is where your online files will be hosted so they can be displayed on the web.
Select the ‘Hatchling Plan’ under web hosting plans. This is just the basic plan, and is all you will really need. It should cost you just a penny for the first month when using the coupon code “1CENT”.
2. Next, you’ll have to pick your domain name. You want your own dot com here, preferably your first and last name if available: firstnamelastname.com.
3. Once you have the account setup at HostGator, go to CVMKR.com.
CVMKR.com helps you create an online professional-looking resume that you’re able to save in multiple formats (PDF, HTML, etc.) In this short guide, we’ll be saving the resume you create as an HTML file to later upload to your website.
Fill out the forms on CVMKR.com as complete and accurate as possible.
Upon completion of creating your resume on CVMKR.com, click the ‘Save & Download’ button and save the resume in HTML format.
4. The HTML file of your resume you just downloaded should now be saved to your computer as My_CV.html. Rename this file to index.html.
5. Now upload this file to your website by using the File Manager in the control panel of your account at HostGator.com.
This tutorial gives an explanation of how to go about uploading files to your HostGator account. If you ever get stuck, the people over at HostGator offer excellent customer service if you have trouble getting your page up on the web.
Anytime you need to update your resume, you can simply log into CVMKR.com, make your changes and hit the ‘Save & Download’ button again. (Note: every time you make changes to your resume on CVMKR.com, you’ll have to save the resume as an HTML file and upload it again to your website.)
Upon completion of these steps, you should now have your own website with your resume publicly available to share with job recruiters.