Resume | The Management Maven

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Your career is as much about your life outside of work as it is about what you do from 8 to 5. Money, health, relationships…it all impacts how effectively you manage your career. Whether you’re trying to find your life’s passion or simply want to land a better gig, it’s time to get more than just your resume in order.

First, take a look at your finances. If your dream job means taking a salary cut or paying more for medical benefits, will you be able to make it work? Committing to living within your means and building up a savings cushion is critical. Career decisions shouldn’t be made from a position of scarcity, so now’s the time to start building good financial habits.

Speaking of habits, how are your diet and exercise? Are you getting enough sleep? A new job will make it tough to focus on self-care. Building a healthy routine now – prepping weeknight meals on Sunday, hitting the gym regularly – will make it easier to stay on track when work gets crazy. And don’t forget about relationships. Make connecting with the important people in your life a regularly scheduled event.

Since you’re career-minded, I’m sure you’ve already spent some time polishing your resume. But have you given your online presence a once-over recently? The bulk of all your online content should reflect your professional experience and interests. Take the time to clean up anything unflattering and make sure you’re putting your best digital foot forward. (This is a good post on crafting a professional digital identity.)

And finally, let’s talk about time. You already feel like you don’t have enough and here I am telling you to add more to your to-do list? I know it seems daunting but I’m willing to bet you have more time than you think. I challenge you to keep a time log for a week and see what you learn. (And I admit that I hate tracking my time too, but it’s worth it. Start here.)

How about you? What would you add to this list?

When I was little, I remember my dad pacing the living room floor, dictating, as my mom typed his words on our old electric typewriter. It was a big, humming machine and the keys made a satisfying chunk sound. The manuscripts were typed, edited, typed again and then mailed off to magazine editors. After my dad passed, my mom sent me the 30-year-old copies of Ranger Rick and Owl that held the evidence of their hard work.

Way back in 1994, I started a newsletter about local music in my hometown – The Perimeter: McMinnville’s Premier Music Publication. I typed the articles on our high-tech word processor, then carefully cut them into columns and pasted them onto graph paper. I hand-lettered the masthead and had a local print shop make 50 copies. A few issues in, my family got a PC, outfitted with Microsoft Publisher and a dial-up internet connection, and my production value went up considerably.

Last week, I helped a single mom, with not much work history but lots of life experience, draft her resume. We emailed back and forth, discussing different ways to describe her skills and tell her story. We changed fonts, reworked the design, and uploaded to her LinkedIn profile, all with a few clicks of a button.

Kitty Ireland remembers typing her first resume on a rented typewriter at the public library. Reading her post, I was reminded how hard getting our ideas out into the world used to be. Crafting a good story, one that deftly explains who we are and what we can offer, is still hard work. But the mechanics of story-telling have definitely gotten easier.

(Photo by glasseyes view via Flickr, licensed under Creative Commons)

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Taking control of your career requires taking control of your life.

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