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How to give your resume a quick tune up

You may come across the term, “tuning your resume”. What does it mean?

It simply means changing the work experience on your employment record to match more closely with the requirements set out in the job ad.

It is plain crazy to have one resume and to use that for each job you apply for. Remember, you are trying to sell yourself to the employer. You need to speak his language.
Look at the job description. What words is he using. Because as we all know there are more ways than one to describe something.

Then look at your resume. Do they match the job description?
If not, “tune it”. Go over yours and change the relevant passages so the match his.

In the field of selling, it important for sales people to get rapport with their customer. This means in a face to face situation, listening how he talks. Is his speech fast or slow. How is he sitting in his chair, relaxed or on the edge. Are his arms folded or on the desk in front of him.
The salesperson should then try to match what his customer is doing, but in a subtle way so as not to appear as though he is copying him.

Getting a job is a sales situation. You are selling yourself. So you need to adopt good sales practices. Match the employer. Get on his wavelength but in a subtle way so he does not realise it is happening.

A term used with tuning is “reaching”.
This is where an employee is trying for a higher level position than the one he is already in. Chances are he knows the buzz words used by his bosses and trots them out in the hope it will add credibility to his story.