Like any recurring good habit that can be marked by time, the middle of the year is as good a time as any to ensure that the professional image that you are presenting to your customers and your industry does not become stagnant. So block off an hour or so to…

Update your resume. I am constantly looking for candidates to join my organization. And I am constantly surprised by the number of professionals, regardless of the stage of their career, who either need a few days “to get my resume together” or provide me with something that hasn’t been updated for years. I don’t want to engage in any discussion about the effectiveness of different resume styles, lengths, etc., as I am more concerned with the basic act of keeping it updated. I will, however, urge you to avoid bad habits such as including a superlative-laden “career objective” section that says nothing about your abilities, focusing on jargon-filled responsibilities rather than results, and spending a lot of space listing out every acronym and technology that you have ever touched. Your resume should be saved as a PDF file that can be readily sent to an interested party (no one likes to be annoyed by the opening of Word or Pages just to read a document, particularly given the increased use of mobile devices). And be sure to include a link in your resume to your LinkedIn profile, because the next step in your midyear career maintenence is to…

Update your LinkedIn profile. In my recruiting efforts, I am equally amazed at the number of incomplete or nonexistent LinkedIn profiles. I tend to think of it this way – if someone has chosen to take the time to create a professional profile on LinkedIn, then why did they choose to do it in such an unprofessional manner? Is this an indicator of other unprofessional behavior that I should be concerned about? Do they have a habit of leaving activities incomplete or not following up? Is this the sort of person that I can trust to engage with my customers and present themselves and our solutions in the best possible light? As a customer, can I be sure that this individual will be thorough in exploring the needs of my business bringing me the appropriate solutions? Gaps in employment, ignoring education, and merely listing one’s current title/employer are the most common infractions. Your network and potential network is using this to learn about you, so you need to let them know what sort of professional you are. A final tip – I enjoy the music of Rush as much or more than the next guy, but that doesn’t mean that I should use a picture of Neil Peart in my LinkedIn profile (ok maybe on his birthday). The same goes for your pet ferret, your kids, or your favorite photo from that infamous frat party of yesteryear. LinkedIn is NOT Facebook.

One thought on length – given the space allowed, I recommend LinkedIn as the place to store the most complete picture of one’s career and experiences. The resume should be somewhat shorter, more focused, and include statements of results in order to capture the reader’s attention. Prospective hiring managers are going to look at both anyway, so you may as well use them both to tell your complete story. And that story is complete when you…

Update your “dust jacket” bio. Now that you have updated the details in your resume and LinkedIn profile, summarize it. Shrink it down into a maximum of four or five sentences describing you as a professional. Add a professional photo of yourself and save this as an editable document (Word or Pages). Having such a document at the ready will come in handy whenever a customer, colleague, or other interested party is in need of a brief introduction. It might be included in proposals, whitepapers, or other customer deliverables; organizational summaries that your management may be building; speaking engagements at your local college; or presentation opportunities at customer or industry conferences. Think of it like the brief author bios that appear on the dust jackets of your favorite books.

As a responsible adult, you likely take your car to the shop, visit the dentist, and get your home HVAC systems inspected on a regular basis. Your career deserves the same sort of attention. Consider adding this resume updating exercise to your other monthly or quarterly activities such as printing the account information and passwords from your password management software and storing them in safe place, printing out all of your contacts’ information from your e-mail or contact management system (remember, paper NEVER crashes), and updating the business results that you will eventually be submitting into your employer’s performance appraisal system at the end of the year.