by Elaine Sihera

Created on: July 15, 2008   Last Updated: August 05, 2009

When one is just starting out in life, the world seems an exciting place. There is much to experiment with and some people take a longer time to decide how they wish to develop their talents and what field would suit them. Often multi-talented young people have generic skills which make them suitable for more than one career, like someone interested in the caring professions who could easily be a nurse, teacher or doctor. The real art is in creating a resume which can go across multiple fields without too many changes.

When you are targeting different jobs, you have to sound sincere if you wish to be taken seriously. You then have two courses of action: either to create one resume that is general enough in skills and expertise to apply to both fields, or create different resumes for each objective. But one size never really fits all when using a standardised resume. Employers tend to prefer applications that seem to closely match what they are looking for, and which broadly conform to their set criteria. If your resume appears too vague or too all-embracing, it might end up at the bottom of the pile.

The sensible option appears to be taking the time to create different resumes for different fields but which share certain unchanging aspects to lessen the repetition. For example, the following will be constant and do not need to change:

a. Your personal details

b. Educational qualifications

c. Awards and honours

d. Referees, perhaps

However, your job history and experience, the skills you highlight, the knowledge and training you have acquired, specific computer and language acumen, and the job expertise you bring, all have to be specific and customised to suit the career you're after. They have to be highly relevant to the stated criteria.

Obviously, if the job targets and operations are similar, like in the public service, then you would get away with more content which does not have to be changed every time. But it is best to specifically address each job on its own merit, paying particular attention to its demands. This ensures that whatever you select from your work history and personal attributes do match the requirements for the job and show a great deal of commitment to what you are seeking, as well as appreciation for the role, even if that application isn't really your first choice.

Sometimes it is better to try out a few positions before making that final choice. However, employers tend to be a bit uneasy regarding job butterflies as they believe they won't really hang around too long and are probably lacking in commitment. They wouldn't wish to waste resources on recruiting them. Despite that, making up a main resume which can then be altered in parts when you have a couple of targets would be advisable in that scenario.

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