Writing a resume is simply the art of story-telling.
You are writing a story about yourself, but you have to tell it in different versions to capture attention from different types of audience.
There is no such thing as a one-size-fit-all winning resume.
Let's put it this way: You cannot tell the same story to a 5-year-old child the same way you do to a 21-year-old adult, right? You have to pay attention and use a lot more exaggerated expressions and varied tonality to capture the short attention span of the child.
Likewise, you must prepare different resume versions if you are applying to different nature jobs.
For example, if you’re currently a sales consultant but you are open to a few different career paths, e.g. brand marketing or sales or channel management, then you MUST have 3 different versions of resumes.
In addition, if your career is very industry specific such as an aircraft engineer in aerospace, but you intend to move into, say, biomedical manufacturing engineering - the nature of the engineering role can be vastly different!
If you belong to this category, you must have another resume version for this.
In short: Same story, told differently.
Resume versions - what is the magic number?
Ask yourself this: Is the industry and function of role applied similar to your past experiences?
1. Same/similar/adjacent industry + similar job function
Scenario example: You're currently a HR Executive from Delta Airlines applying to a 3PL such as DHL, for a HR Specialist vacancy.
Congratulations, you have it relatively easy. You only need 1 resume version.
2. Same/similar/adjacent industry + exploring a different job function
Scenario example: You're a Software Engineer in Microsoft applying to both software engineering and technical sales consulting vacancies in SAP because you are open to venture into a different career path to broaden your horizons.
You will need 2 resume versions - 1 that tells the story of you being an excellent software engineer that the line manager of the software engineering team needs, and another that tells a compelling story of why your skills and experience as software engineer will make you a great sales consultant to the line manager of their technical sales team.
3. Exploring a different industry + similar job function
Scenario example: You're currently a Financial Analyst with Nestle (FMCG industry) and apart from applying to similar roles in other FMCG companies, you would like to explore Financial Analyst vacancies in other industries such as medical devices.
You will need 2 resume versions - 1 for application to similar FMCG companies, and another for application to a different industry.
However, the good news is the effort required to tweak your story into 2 versions will most likely be less strenuous than someone in a category 2 situation.
4. Exploring a different industry + different job function
Scenario example: You're currently an Accountant in Citibank and would not mind continuing down the career path of an Accountant, but you would want to venture and apply for a UX Designer vacancy with Ubisoft as well.
You need 2 resume versions - 1 for application to Accountant roles, and another for your application to a UX designer role.
In this example, the UX designer resume version will be most challenging to write and the resume itself likely will not create a miracle to get you hired.
In this extreme scenario when the skill set and industry explored are vastly different from one's original background, one MUST build a resume using other critical strategies such as getting certified in the relevant field, completing a relevant higher learning course to upskill, getting hands dirty and creating a portfolio to showcase past projects, etc.
In conclusion
A lot of work? You bet! But if you know that the success hit rate can go as high as 80-90%, all you need to do is to wait for your prospective employer(s) to call you up for interview next.
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