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.

Donald P. Orlando, MBA, CPRW, JCTC, CCM, CCMC

"I need a resume!"

For your job-seeking competition, those can be the four most intimidating words in the English language. But they won't have to be for you, once you've read what follows.

Why Resume Folklore is Fearsome

The world is awash in "advice" about how to write a resume. Some of it is harmless, some of it even funny, but most of it is frustratingly contradictory, unproductive, or just plain wrong. No wonder some people still believe a resume must be one page, is driven by a mysterious collection of buzzwords, or requires that odd collection of glittering generalities is sometimes called a "summary of qualifications."

Let your job-seeking competition thrash about trying to meet all those "requirements". We want something better for you.

How Your Resume Really Starts When an Employer Needs a New Team Member

It's natural to concentrate on your own needs as you write a resume. However, a few moments thinking about the employer's needs pays big dividends.

Think about a manager who needs a new team member. She wants more than a person. She needs capabilities that contribute to the company's bottom line. We summarize those capabilities in names we give career fields.

For example, people in sales offer capabilities that persuade people to pay money for a product or service-nearly any product or service. So, our employer wants resumes showing applicants' sales abilities.

That's why your resume must focus on a given career field (not necessarily a given position). Said another way, a "general" resume always fails.

But our employer needs more than resumes. Before she advertised the position, she had to convince her boss-the person who signs her performance review-that anybody she hires must make, or save, the company more money than it costs to hire him or her.

If your resume builds clear and compelling proof in the reader's mind that you are that person, you have just made your potential boss look good. . .before the interview.

The Three Roles Your Resume Must Play

Based on what you just read, your resume must be a research document for the employer. You're off to a good start if your resume spells out which field you are pursuing, your understanding of the problems your new company will ask you to solve, and living, breathing, documented proof of how you solved similar problems.

No room for generalities here. Traits like "hard-working," "self-starting," and being a "people person" add nothing except your ability to lay out the minimum standards for nearly every job.

Your resume should be a template for an outstanding interview. Most interviewers are as nervous about the process as you are. They are usually untrained in interviewing. They know there is a lot riding on their decisions. That's how most interviews turn into "interrogations."

But you want the meeting to be a collaboration. When you lay out your understanding of the challenges you will meet and your track record, you entice the interviewer to talk about what you both want to discuss: how you're going to make the target company lots of money.

Your resume should be a powerful lever to negotiate compensation. Many companies concentrate so much on the cost of hiring that they forget value.

They may try to hire you for less than you are worth. However, if you are paid what you are worth, you and the company both succeed. A resume that shows how much revenue you generated and how many thousands of dollars you saved, is telegraphing your readiness to do the same for every reader. It's just a matter of which company will move fastest to extend you an offer.

The Final Tests

Once you know your resume is aimed at a given field and that it can serve the three roles I've laid out, it's time for the final tests.

Because managers scan resumes, concise documents are better. Be sure every word, phrase, sentence, and paragraph does its best to match your excellence to an employer's needs. Take out every word that doesn't carry its own weight and use the shortest words you can.

The last step seems easiest, but can be hard. Proof your document very well. One successful proofing method suggests you put away what you've written overnight. Then look at your draft with a fresh view in the morning.

Now you have standards for an excellent resume. If you will measure what you write against what the interviewer needs, your documents and your career, will float right to the top.

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