I'm not a hiring manager or an HR person, but my DH got laid off a couple of years ago, during the worst recession ever - and it took a bit of work to come up with a decent resume after not needing one for a really long time. We lucked out, because by the time we got the resume in tip-top shape and learned all the ins and outs of resumes as they are *now* (and not ten or so years ago), the interviews and offers came up pretty darned quickly. DH landed a job in less than a month after starting to apply with the new resume, and it came with a very generous relocation package and a much higher salary than the old job.
Lessons learned:
- One 'master' resume, and create a customized resume for each and every job applied for. Tailor the bullet points and keywords to the position - each position applied for gets it's very own customized, carefully edited, separate resume based on the "master" resume.
- The person writing the resume (or helping craft it) should interview the applicant. I was the one helping my DH with this, and I "interviewed" him like crazy. Things like, "Oh, so you managed to reduce return warranty expenses by how much?" and so on. These became the 'achievements' listed at each previous job. This worked *very well*. DH had no idea of his own achievements, specialty skills and so on, until I started asking and taking a ton of notes. Things like, "That program you wrote - what did it do? How is it used?" and so on. These were also put on the 'master' skills/achievement list we kept (see below)
- In addition to the 'master resume' , we also had a giant master list of skills, accomplishments/achievements in a separate document. This made it much easier to pull in specialty items or particular skills into a customized resume for a specific position. That master list of skills & achievements contained everything in the master resume, but it *also* contained all kinds of other useful information that didn't make it onto the master resume, but that would prove extremely useful when needed.
You want one excellent 'main resume' which is so good that it can stand alone, but you also want another separate listing of all kinds of things that might be useful - every achievement/skill that you can think of. These *will* come in handy when you're sitting there thinking the resume needs a bit of customization to fit a particular role.
And yes, it is true that resumes submitted electronically will be scanned for particular keywords - which is why customizing each resume submitted is so important. At the very least - you will have to edit the resume, and add in appropriate keywords for the position in question, before submitting it. Otherwise, it might not ever be seen by human eyes. This is for 'direct' applications. Dealing with recruiters might be a slightly different story.
All of that said, while it sounds like a lot of work, it was an excellent practice to basically re-write the resume for each submission - requiring a good, close look at the actual position opening, analysis of 'fit' in terms of how well you can probably do the job in question and so on.
Good luck! It'll be worth the hassle
PS - An easy way to do this at first? Once you have the main resume perfected, and your DH is ready to apply for something - interview him for that job. Take notes, and re-do the resume based on the "interview." After a few tries doing this, your DH will be able to customize these things without needing an "interview" in order to tailor it.
