After several years of pandemic-related fatigue, facility management professionals slowly are revisiting their career goals and starting to think about what comes next. Whether contemplating a move up the ladder in an existing facility management organization or considering a complete company change, facility professionals are finding the job search terrain is dramatically different than it used to be.

The new norm these days is a work remotely job environment or a split system where some staff work from home and others come into the office. Because the work environment has changed, the application process also is different from what facility managers have experienced in the past.

Despite the fact the job application process has been redefined, the need for a resume to describe an applicant’s skills and capabilities still exists. It makes no difference if a facility professional is preparing an online form for an opportunity in a new company or applying for a position to advance a career within their current organization. In both cases there are essential techniques and tips to follow to ensure a resume stands out in a crowd.

Retooling a resume to match the requirements of the job is not an option, it is a necessity. Recruiters and hiring officials peruse a sea of resumes and after a while they all blend in together. A facility management resume should match the position requirements to include technical skills, work experience, degrees and certifications, and licenses. When facility professionals are concerned their current or previous experience may not match the stated requirements for a new position, they need to rewrite the description of their capabilities to demonstrate how their knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSA) transfer to the advertised position.

Here’s a tip: Facility professionals tend to update their resumes by adding recent job titles to an old resume each time their career advances. The resume becomes a laundry list of job titles and responsibilities. Newer employees do not have as much of a problem since their work history is short, but when an experienced professional is applying for a new position, they need to remove the first three or four positions from their resume. These positions most likely were entry-level jobs that aren’t related to the new role they are seeking. Eliminating early work history, however, does not mean a resume can show unexplained gaps in work experience. Where gaps appear in work chronology, a resume must provide an explanation for why they occurred.