Alvah Parker is publisher of Road to Success and Parker's Points, e-newsletters providing strategies to advance your business and career goals. Click here to subscribe. Alvah is a Work/life coach, who can be reached at asparker@asparker.com, or visited on the web at www.asparker.com.

Powerful Content
There are five major sections to develop in a powerful executive resume. By including engaging, relevant, quantified, and accurate content in each one, your resume will better position you for the jobs you seek.

1. Summary of Qualifications. From a content standpoint, a resume should start off with a "Summary of Qualifications," a three to eight sentence overview of your career experience. An "Objective" is not appropriate to include on an executive resume. In your "Summary of Qualifications," hit the highlights right up front -- "Twenty years of product marketing experience"-- "Skilled in building strong sales teams" or "Fluent in Mandarin and Cantonese."

2. Areas of Strength. Next, briefly list keywords that describe your areas of strength, as if you were going to put the resume on the Internet. Many companies scan for keywords and need to see your particular buzzwords -- "Sales management" "Cost controls" "Financial reporting" or "Distribution" -- you get the idea.

3. Professional Experience. When you list your job experience under the heading of "Professional Experience," you need to identify and describe your skills and responsibilities. Skills are what you do and how you do it with regard to each position held, starting with the most current. Prospective employers are most interested in what your skills and experiences have been over the past 10-12 years. You can list previous jobs if they are related to your field, but please don't give a three page laundry list going back to that after-school job in high school.

4. Accomplishments. What will ultimately set you apart from everyone else with similar work experience is, of course, "Accomplishments." Your accomplishments under each job title or position must be quantified. By quantified, I mean how did you make your company money, save the company money, increase department efficiency, and/or reduce operating costs? Be specific with numbers and percentages, if possible. Some specific examples of "Accomplishments" are: "Reduced operating costs by 13% within first year in this position" -- "Negotiated the company's first global marketing contract for entire product line" or "Named to President's Circle three consecutive years."

5. Education. After clearly presenting your job responsibilities and accomplishments, the next category on the resume should be "Education." List degrees earned, name of college/university, and city/state. A general rule of resume writing is to include the years of graduation only if you have graduated within the past three years. Please do not "fudge" the subject area you majored in, your GPA or the type of degree earned. If you attended college for three years but did not graduate, don't list BA. If a background check is carried out, you will be immediately disqualified for consideration if even one "white lie" is caught by the personnel department.

Powerful Presentation
Having addressed the issue of content, the final piece of the resume to focus on is "format" or visual presentation. If the format is weak, regardless of the content, it just won't work. Visual presentation is almost as critical as content. If the typeface is too small, there is not enough white space on the page, or the print is smudged or too light to read easily, you are just wasting your time and postage in sending it out. Again, the "gatekeeper" is the first roadblock that your resume encounters and it must get past that person on the first attempt.

If your current resume is not generating the interest you want among executive recruiters and potential employers, you can submit it for a free critique and price quote from one of our experts in executive career achievement. You will get straight feedback on the areas your resume works well -- and how it could be holding you back. To get your free critique, email your resume to resumecritique@executiveagent.com.

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