Working for the same organisation in the same job until you retire is increasingly unlikely.  Most people need to periodically move jobs to get more experience and improve their career.  Find out how you can manage your career (and annoy your boss) by updating your resume or CV.

Unless the place that you are working now is very unusual, if you are competent and productive the Man will be quite happy to have you do what you are doing until they “reorganise” or “right-size”, or you retire, or you run into a boss from hell who will make your life a misery.  The Man doesn’t care if you stagnate, or if there is something else you would benefit from doing.  In fact, if you leave, that would be a problem because then he would have to find someone else to do it.  What I am saying is that if you don’t manage your career, no-one else is going to do it.

Similarly, if you just drift, that’s fine.  Just don’t be miserable when you see other people getting ahead and wonder why you are not.

The key career management document is the resume or CV.  When you are applying to a new job, the recruiter doesn’t know who you are or what you can do.  You are just another applicant.  Your resume is your sales document where you highlight the experience that you have, and even a bit about yourself.

I know people who have been working in the same place for years.  They have let their resume slide, and as a result, don’t know what they can bring to an employer, although they have good skills and experience.   With a resume, they can also see if there are any gaps that they need to cover and work on fixing them.

Even if you are not looking for a job, you need your resume to be current.  Every time I learn something new that is marketable, I make sure that it is on my resume.  Since I am a contractor, my resume is vital.

So my subversive tip is to either update, or even create, your resume, even if you are already working and not intending to get another job.  It is your escape option that is always available.

Tags: career, cv, resume, sovereign individual

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 11th, 2010 at 9:00 am and is filed under Daily subversive tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.