Avoiding Red Flags When Updating Your Professional Resume

One of the red flags an interviewer looks for is inconsistency in your information. If you have updated your professional resume, take the time to look at your cover letter and online information carefully to make sure they all match. I’m not saying to keep a falsehood consistent because lying is never a good idea, but I am saying that if you are not updating everything when you refresh one thing it eventually will look like you lied because the records are inconsistent.
This is an easy trap to fall into because there are so many places your professional information can be found. If you have recently taken a seminar on a specialty in your field, you may remember to put it on your resume but forget about your LinkedIn profile. Do that three times and your online brand is lacking three important pieces of information about you. Do that ten times, and an interviewer will wonder what’s going on.
This is also an easy trap to avoid! All you need to do is understand that updating your professional resume involves more than the pages you print out to mail with a cover letter or attach to an email. When you look at the professional resume packages offered, you’ll see that reflected. If you aren’t going to invest in a service like that, then it is a good idea to post a reminder to yourself in your resume folder that change to one means changing it all.
You are a package deal; a composite of experience and training and perspective that will benefit an employer. Your professional resume ‘package’ is a composite of your online brand, resume, and any other information a potential employee can dig up. Keep your information consistent across that package and there won’t be any red flags to find.