Have You Mastered Your Master Resume?

One of the great organizational tools of resume creation is the master resume.  Although it’s considered an optional tool designed to ease the writing process, for those who use it, the benefits are enormous.

If you have created your own master resume, you may have quickly realized that the greatest benefits come when you put more effort into making this document serve its intended purpose.  If you utilize it as intended, you can indeed create great submission resumes that do a good job of snagging interviews.

What is the Purpose of the Master Resume?

The purpose of a master resume is to organize your entire career into one document that you can later extract from when submitting individual, customized resumes.  The need for this type of document arose once it became apparent that submitting the same resume to multiple companies (minus a few subtle changes) was no longer appropriate.

Job seekers often experience the best results from submitting unique resumes that are tailored to a specific company’s mission and the position for which they’re hiring.  In writing your resume, this could mean you will have to continually recall specific instances in your work history that match the job you’re applying for.

To avoid the hassle associated with this enormous feat, experts have started recommending master resumes.  The master resume is never to be submitted.  Instead, it allows you to add all of your education, work history, career goals, etc. to one document so that you can locate these items quickly when tailoring specific resumes.

Why Organization Is Crucial to Mastering Your Master Resume

In order to say you’ve mastered your master resume, organization is of upmost importance.  You will need to clearly define various sections that could be utilized in submission resumes, then appropriately list your skills, accomplishments, and work history based on those sections you’ve created.

The best time to work on your master resume is while you’re still employed and in the process of acquiring new qualifications; this is because your contributions and their impact are still fresh in your mind.  But even if you’re between jobs, you can add details to the resume as you remember them.

Keep in mind that your master resume does not have to stop at a certain length.  Make it as long and detailed as possible.  And if you have two career tracks, you may want to create two master resumes to better organize your history.

The great thing about a master resume is that you don’t have to worry about meeting a deadline to get it done.  You can work on it until you decide you’re no longer interested in looking for work.  By mastering your master resume, you are more likely to create in-depth submission resumes that catch the attention of managers hoping to hire someone just like you.

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