Every week, my team and I have a roundtable discussion on what some of the most common resume questions have been over the last week. Here are a few questions that are trending this week…
1. Should I list 2 jobs that I am performing concurrently for the same company on my resume?
If the skills and achievements associated with those jobs will carry weight with hiring managers and have added value in a new role, then yes you should include them both. You have the option to list them out separately or you can combine them under one job umbrella. But the goal is to only highlight the things that will have added value to hiring managers for the job you are applying to.
2. What is an electronic resume (eresume) and how should I use it?
An eresume is an electronic formatted text document that is used for applying to jobs online. It is ATS friendly and will ensure your data is always readable. You 100% always need to have an eresume because the text version will come in handy when you are applying to jobs online.
3. Do I have to include my LinkedIn URL in my resume?
My recommendation is to always include your LinkedIn URL in your resume as long as your LinkedIn profile is current and very strong. If your LinkedIn profile is weak at best or contains all old information about your career, then at that point you need to omit your LinkedIn URL from the resume. Make a commitment to update your LinkedIn profile first and make it as robust and reflective of your current status as possible. Once you are confident that your LinkedIn profile is reader and hiring manager worthy, then include the LinkedIn URL on your resume. Quick tip–when you have the LinkedIn URL listed, it sparks more conversion and talking points for your job interviews!
4. If a company has gone through several mergers and acquisitions, do I have to list all of the company names that they went by over the years on my resume?
Short answer-no! You need to include the current company name for brand recognition and employment verification purposes, but you can also include one or two of the names the company formerly went by. This also helps with employment verification incase the company has not transitioned over all of its employment records for its talent. I recommend listing no more than two older names the company formerly went by.
5. I want to list my jobs in an outline form on the resume so it stands out more. Can I do that?
No, this is not a good idea at any point. Just from an ATS standpoint, outlines may cause readability issues. This would render all of your resume’s content unreadable, which means no job interviews simply because your data was not readable. But even from an aesthetic standpoint, outlines are not an effective strategy to use on a resume. Outlines do very little to highlight your achievements and showcase your talent. You tend to lose the momentum you get from traditional resume formatting that draws you in, sells hiring managers on what you can do, and then drives home why you are the best qualified candidate for the job. I cannot think of any circumstance where using an outline in a resume would ever yield positive results.