4 Reasons Why Everyone Needs to Update Their Resume (Even business owners!)

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EVERYONE should keep their resume updated--EVERYONE (not including really young children :).

A friend of mine works for a company who REQUIRES that each employee updates his or her resume every so often.

That's right!  An employer!

An employer requires its employees to keep their resumes updated.

Why would they want to encourage that?  Is the company trying to get rid of its employees?

Possibly...but probably not.

So I started thinking about it, and while I cannot answer for the officials at this specific company, I can offer a few reasons why it makes sense (to me).

Here are four (4) reasons I think that EVERYONE should make AND update his or her resume, even people who are not looking for work--even business owners!

Reason #1: Track Your Accomplishments

How often do we scramble to remember what we've done recently? Most of us do plenty of good things throughout the year, but most of us remember hardly any of them, especially if we have to share those accomplishments with someone else. If we KNEW that we had to "update our resume," might some of us KNOW to keep a running tab of our accomplishments? Why don't we do this, anyway?  (even if nobody is requiring us to do this) If we're always updating our resume, brochure, list of accomplishments, etc, we are more likely to pay attention to the good things we're doing and record them (and not forget about them).  

Reason #2: Track Frequency of Your Accomplishments

If we are tracking our accomplishments, it gives us a reality check about the LAST TIME we had an accomplishment we could claim and write. Are we resting on our laurels from yesterday's accomplishments, or are we finding NEW things to achieve? For instance, if we go a whole year without being able to add an achievement, I think most of us would be alarmed.  More importantly, most of us would make sure that NEXT YEAR we would have, at least, one (1) accomplishment to write, if not a whole lot more than that.  

Reason #3: Identify Accomplishments You Want to Write NEXT TIME

Have you ever wished you could write that you accomplished something, but you knew you couldn't, yet? If we are not updating our resumes (or whatever else we are using to track our accomplishments) for years, we might not even realize how much time is passing between our original wish and now (today).  Many of us "want to do things" for a very long time...a VERY LONG TIME...but we don't realize how much time really passed us. If we're constantly checking ourselves, we are more likely to shame ourselves--in a good way--to identify which things we want to accomplish--and WRITE that we accomplished them next time.

Reason #4: Compare Your Goals with Your Accomplishments

The most successful people write out their goals. However, there are plenty of other people who write out their goals, too, but they are not successful. There is one major difference between the writers (people who write their goals) and the doers (the successful people who accomplish their goals).  The writers never recheck their goal lists.  The doers are always comparing their written goals with what they've done...their accomplishments. Successful people identify which goals are really important to them, and they correct their direction if they are veering too far off-course.

They will change their actions, if necessary. You cannot do this if you do not know that you're off your success course. If you write goals and constantly update your resume, you will notice where you are hitting...and just as importantly, where you are missing. After I thought about these things, I realized how smart my friend's company really was being when it required its employees to update their resumes. Do you have a resume?  More importantly, are you keeping it updated? What accomplishments should you be ready to share with the world?  How do you know you won't forget about them?

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