You are talented, intelligent, experienced and fabulous. You have identified your dream job, or you are ready for a promotion and want to advance in your organization or corporation. You know you are ready, and we know it too but   there is one person who you need to prove it to, the hiring manager.

Your resume is a critical document for your career advancement. It will proceed most interviews, and even telephone conversations. This is your first impression professionally. A fab finance resume is one that has been reviewed, updated, edited and customized. Follow these tips to ensure your resume is reflecting the copious amounts of awesome that you are.

Update: Your resume should always, always be updated and ready to go. When you are networking and somebody say “send me your resume” what they are really saying is “send me your resume right now before I forget you even exist” Harsh as it may seem, you really do have a short amount of time. I suggest with in the business day or before noon the next day. You cant do this if your resume is not updated with your most current education or experience.

Customized: If you are starting your job search, you need to make the effort to read the ENTIRE job posting. You should be using the language and verbiage of the posting as much as possible. If your resume says worked with teens on community service, but the job posting says “seeking energetic  youth worker for inner city teens” then guess what your resume needs to say?

High energy, compassionate youth worker with over 5 years of experience leading services projects for New York City Teens.  Your resume needs to be customized for two reasons, the HR robots who will be shifting through the millions of emails will be looking for specific key words. Those key words are not a mystery, they are in the posting! When your resume is read by the person who wrote the posting, they will have an “ah-ha” moment and feel like you are exactly what they are looking for, because you are using their language.

Review: Have your resume reviewed my different people. Utilize resources like the library, career centers, workforce development centers and family and friends. I got into my career path because I was strategic with who I asked to review my resume. I asked a colleague to review my resume, (knowing she would be hiring soon) and with that gesture, I was unofficially submitting my resume to her. The rest is history.

Edit: Don’t be afraid to make changes to your resume, whether it is format or content. Do your research to see what resumes in your particular field look like and be willing to adjust accordingly. Here is a portion of a resume I recently edited for a client. I adjusted both the format and content while keeping true to the individuals experience and skills.

I hope these pointers were helpful. Recently I gave a promo on Instagram victoriafab_ where I edited 5 resumes for free. The response was overwhelming! Stay tuned, there will be similar promotions in the future.