Your personal Annual Report - Your Resume

Following my last entry, I started to update my resume. Well, it is on my to-do list for a long time already, but somehow I never managed. But I believe that everybody should have a very updated resume handy. And why not? The call from a headhunter can come any minute, for you, who is in an entry position, reached mid-level, or is already in the so called senior management level. Headhunters don't want to wait. It is not possible to say - Oops, sorry, give me a week, I have to update my resume. They want fast action, and how does it reflect on someone who says that he or she needs to update the resume?

Not very good - it means that somewhere along the line, you slacked. Yep. Or you are complacent, living the dream that the company that you work for hired you on a permanent, until retirement base. Dream on. DREAM ON. No company hired you on a long term base. Or, if anything, it means, you will change your job in the same company in an ongoing base. And your skill base changes, ongoing. If not, well, you are left behind and out of your job in zero. five seconds. You have been hired, a long time back, or not so long ago. But are you actually doing what was learnt in school, college, university? What was written in the original job description? Nope - probably not.

90% of the time, things have changed. Hopefully to the better.

This is your project. Write it down, in your resume. It is like the Annual Report of a company or their quarterly reporting to Wall Street or whatever. A company reports progress - please report your projects. Are they getting better? Have you learnt anything new? If not, it might be time to talk to your manager, about more challenging tasks. You don't want to be left behind and one day, your company comes to you and says: "Ahem, sorry, we realised that you job/ department or whatever has become redundant. It was nice meeting you, and you delivered a lot. You worked a lot, spent many hours here. From 7.30 AM to 8.30 PM but well, what you did is now done by a computer. You failed to upgrade your skills. We don't need you any more. Good bye."

So, check your resume. I am doing it now - haven't it done for a long time myself, but there are so many changes in my company, that I better do something. And oh - one thing - find a friend that nags. Nags you to do it. I have such a friend - thanks to her, I am on my way. She actually told me not to call her anymore, or send an e-mail and rather spend the time writing my CV. so I am doing it over the Merdeka holidays. Besides opening the window to shout out : Happy Merdeka, Malaysia.

Have fun.