Here is your annual reminder that September is “International Update Your Résumé Month.” Are you managing your career and updating your career documents?

As an employee, when you tweak your résumé, you could be simultaneously gathering performance metrics for your end-of-year review. That’s a win-win!

Although the Department of Labor reported a decrease in initial and ongoing unemployment claims over the past 52 weeks, the highest local tristate area insured unemployment rates were New Jersey at 1.9 and Pennsylvania at 1.2 for the week ending September 10.

There may be a lot of job openings and hiring going on, but some companies are also laying off employees, so you always need to keep your career documents current and up to date.

If you haven’t dusted off your résumé in a while and need some tips, here are seven articles to help you with keywords, verbs, formatting, gaps, and more.

• Win with Keywords on Your Résumé & LinkedIn Profile
• Tips for Writing Accomplishments on Your Résumé or LinkedIn for International Update Your Résumé Month
• Conquer the Employment Gap on Your Résumé and LinkedIn Profile
• Secrets to Writing Résumés for Bots versus Humans
• 73 Formatting Tips to Optimize Your Résumé to Get Hired
• Which comes first – résumé or LinkedIn?
• Over 300 Powerful Action Verbs for Your Career Documents

Once you have established a solid base résumé, you can make copies and customize them for each job application. If you have the proper format, it’s easy to exchange keywords, and you can also weave in key phrases from each job description.

Here are the typical sections I use in a résumé, though they may vary by individual:

• Tailored Resume Headline
• Core Competencies
• Career Highlights
• Professional Experience
• Past Experience (if applicable)
• Education & Certifications
• Awards & Honors
• Professional Organizations
• Volunteer

Here are a couple of other tips if you are concerned about age discrimination:

• Do not use an AOL email; get a Gmail address
• Do not use Times New Roman; try Calibri or another modern font
• No “Objective” or “References available upon request”
• Remove graduation dates
• Only go back 12–15 years of work experience

If you don’t have time or don’t want to update your résumé on your own, hire a career coach who will collaborate with you individually.

Next Steps

• Subscribe to my newsletter on LinkedIn for bright ideas to manage your career

• Join as a member at Great Careers, the No. 1 business networking association on the Philadelphia Business Journal’s Book of Lists two years in a row

• Register on the Great Careers events page for these upcoming online events

• If you need a résumé or LinkedIn profile to get you to your next step, visit my Calendar to book a call to chat.

• Follow #GreatCareersPHL