The Hidden Impact of Your Resume on Your Long Term Wealth
Your Resume is More than just for Job Applications
A well-planned resume could mean the difference between getting an interview at a GOOD company versus at a GREAT company; which in turns affects whether you get a GOOD offer versus a GREAT offer.
The difference in monetary returns between both offers could be significant over time. Thus, having a GREAT resume makes a difference.
In this article, I will aim to answer these questions:
Are resumes still relevant today?
Why is your resume important?
How does your resume impact your financial wellbeing over the long term?
Purpose of a Resume - Why is your Resume Important?
A resume has always been a tool for job applications. The only time you update your resume is when you are looking to change jobs. After you get into a new job, neither you nor the company will ever refer to your resume again. (Until the very next time you are looking to change jobs.)
And so this happens to be my biggest pet peeve, which is that when you need your resume the most:
To get you away from a lousy manager;
To get you into a higher paying job;
To apply for a role that finally opened which you really love;
You are not ready with the best version of your resume. This could mean you not putting yourself in the best position to use an updated resume to get into a role that you really want.
My hope is that people spend time to maintain their resumes on a regular basis. It should not take too much time to maintain your resume. Spending an hour every six months just to update what you have done in your current job can significantly save you time and effort for when you need your resume.
The Impact of Getting a Job on Your Financial Wellbeing.
Money is the most basic need for most people. Each day, we are all striving to solve our need for money. (If you are interested, I have written an article exploring this topic of Money in greater detail which you can read by clicking here.)
For most of us, the path to wealth tends to look like this:
You get a job to earn a salary. You try to grow your salary.
You learn to be financially savvy - Save, Spend, Invest wisely.
Explore your interests and build your skills.
Work on a side project which leverages your skills to generate an income to replace your salary.
Achieve a life of financial freedom with your various incomes and investments.
Unless we are born into extremely rich circumstances, where do most of us start? It is still to get into a traditional 9 to 5 job to start earning a salary first.
And how do you usually get hired for a job? First step in any recruitment process is resume screening. If you have an attractive resume, you are giving yourself a good chance of succeeding at getting a role. It also opens up opportunities for bigger companies to
Thus, your resume have a much larger impact on your financial wellbeing that you would think.
An Alternative Career Path OR A Traditional 9 to 5 Job?
On platforms such as YouTube and TikTok, you are able to see examples online of what others are doing and how they are getting successful through non-traditional career paths. These examples show that there is another way to earn an income instead of a traditional career route of a 9 to 5 job.
I will be the first to encourage you to chase something outside of a traditional 9 to 5 job. Because this is something I am trying to do myself with The Rebel Framework, where I am writing and sharing my thoughts and ideas while working a full-time job.
However, for me to be able to pursue this passion of mine, I recognise that I do need to rely on the income from my full-time job to feed my family, be able to pay the bills, and to afford my daily expenses.
It will be irresponsible for me to encourage you to chase your passions blindly. A salary from a full-time job allows you to chase your passions and pursue your hobbies more freely. It frees you from financial worries about whether or not chasing your passions can feed you.
Thus, for most of us, the way to resolve and fulfil our need for money still start with a traditional 9 to 5 job.
Concluding Thoughts - A Resume is just a Starting Point, Other Skills Matter Too.
As a starting point for most of us, a resume is a document that could decide whether you can get a more attractive offer over another. This could mean a significant increase in salary from one to another job. This is why I think it is still extremely important to master your resume skills.
Of course, a company still has to assess other aspects of who you are and what you can offer to the company before they can hire you. Imagine if you have an attractive resume but you have bad interview skills, you are probably not going to get hired.
So your resume is just one piece in the puzzle of getting a job. You need to master your interview skills, you need to learn how to manage your career internally in your company, you need to learn how to get the most out of people.
With proper career management, this is where most people will gain the bulk of their wealth. I hope you gain some insight and stick around for other content on how to help you with different career skillsets.
Side Note:
This is the first article of a series of 5 articles. In this series of articles, I explore the relevance of resumes today and share how to optimise your resume. This came about because I had went onto a radio show on Money FM89.3 to discuss about this topic. You can watch this on YouTube by clicking here.
This article should be read first before moving on to the others as I want to preface the reason for why focusing on your resume is important. More importantly, illustrating to you the impact your resume could have on your financial wellbeing.
