📋 How To Update Your Resume

Hello, Connectors 😎

Today in 5 minutes or less, you’ll learn three strategies for updating your resume across different career stages so you always have a remote-ready resume.

Plus, the best links and resources on remote work. You'll learn:

• 📊 How we’re measuring productivity in the remote work era

• 🌍️ Deep dive into Atlassian’s “Team Anywhere” philosophy

• 🧑 14% of all US-employed adults WFH (and more stats)

Let’s jump in:

📋 How To Update Your Resume

The first quarter of 2024 alone sent thousands of people scurrying to their computers to update their resumes:

• 8,000 from SAP

• 2,500 from PayPal

• 1,900 from Microsoft

• 1,650 from Wayfair

• 530 from Riot Games

• 500 from Snap

• 400 from Okta

…and thousands more laid off who didn’t make headlines.

There’s nothing like that blinking cursor and the pressure of needing that next job that makes it impossible to capture your years of hard work and achievements. 

Some of my smartest friends have confessed they’ve sat for hours trying to update their resumes. The end result? Something more like a puzzle with missing pieces than a remote-ready resume.

The problem is that there are levels when it comes to updating your resume. Each level uses a different framework:

• Level 1: When you need a job 

• Level 2: Before you need a job

• Level 3: While you’re interviewing

Let’s dig into each level.

Level 1: When you need a job

Most people don’t think about updating their resume until they need a job. 

The bad news: This is the hardest level. We’re talking Final Boss level. 

The good news: There are two frameworks to help you solve this. 

First, the “Cocktail Party Brag” framework. It goes like this: 

The key here: this is your best friend bragging about you. How my best friend would hype me up is completely different than how I’d “brag” about myself. 

For example, here’s how I explain what I do:

What my best friend would say: 

Use the Cocktail Party Brag framework for every aspect of your job to help unblock your resume updates. 

Second, punch up your resume with People, Brands, and $$$. 

Go through every bullet point in your resume and punch it up with one or more of the following: 

1. How many people affected? 

2. What brand names? 

3. How much $$$?

Here's a recent “before” example from a client: 

Not bad. Here’s the after: 

Massive upgrade. 

Level 2: Before you need a job

The best time to update your resume is before you need the job. Here’s how you do it:

1/ Track the following:

• Any positive team feedback you received

• Details about customers you helped

• Testimonials you have in your email

• Launches you planned or executed

• How your work impacted the business

• How your work impacted your customers

• What you learned from the experience 

My manager works this into my quarterly reviews. Here are the questions we go through:

2/ Track in a non-work account

Pick your poison: Google Docs, Notion, Notes, whatever works for you.

Use hashtags or labels so you can easily dig these up later.

3/ Track once per quarter

Put a recurring reminder to do this in your calendar and in Slack/Teams.

4/ (Bonus) Save reusable components

A reusable component is something you create to solve one problem that you can use again to solve another.

These assets help you get 10x done in half the time. 

Examples:

• Competitive analysis template

• Discovery interview questions

• Experimentation frameworks

• Investor update decks

• Quantitative models

• Job descriptions

• GTM checklists

Each time you build an asset, ask yourself:

If the answer is yes, save a copy in your files.

Level 3: While you're interviewing

Caution: Advanced only.

When thinking about my career, a few questions I ask myself: 

• What skill should I build? 

• What area do I want to develop? 

• What accomplishments do I want to achieve? 

Then, when I’m interviewing, I screen for these with these questions: 

There’s no guarantee these will happen. But by being intentional about how you want to develop, you’re giving yourself a better chance than by leaving it up to fate. 

Conclusion

The volume of the layoffs doesn’t surprise me.

What’s startling is how they’re handled. People go to the office or sign into their computer, only to find they no longer work for the company.

It didn't matter if you were there for 2 months or 12 years. They were all treated the same.

You have less control over your exit than you think.

So if you’re spending years in a company…

Make sure you get a stellar resume in exchange for your investment.

That’s a wrap. See you next week 👋

🤝 3 ways I can help you with remote work: