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Effective Resume Preparation makes resume writing more focused, more effective, more precise, increases your chances of getting an interview, and saves lots of time.

During this phase of making your resume, you may get frustrated because you do not see the copy on your resume developing. However, organizing yourself for this complex task first really does have significant benefits. Learning how to make a resume is not a simple task. Oh, don't get me wrong, sticking a few words on paper, leaving a little white space here and there, and putting your name on top is definitely easier that what you are about to learn. The only problem with the easy approach is if you have competitors for the position you want.

In that case, failing to

• gather your data
• organize your material, and
• wordsmith the very best document you can

will only wind up with your precious document in Suzie's round file.

After you've met Suzie, resume preparation will take on a whole new meaning for you.

Oh, you don't know Suzie? Read about her to find out why you may experience resume failure.

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Effective Resume Preparation Involves Research

An enormous percentage of people who send resumes as a point of contact for a job have never even considered those two statements. The result is Suzie has an enormous round file filled with what she considers to be trash.

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Effective Resume Preparation Will Make Your Writing More Focused

Effective resume preparation is really about getting organized before you start putting your fingers to the keyboard. It is, without doubt, the most difficult part of how to make a resume. The reason it is so difficult for many people is because they have failed to keep essential documents, have forgotten

• time frames
• addresses
• names
• accomplishments
• problems solved and
• other essentials of professional history.

Then there is the dreaded "T" word - Thinking. Thinking about

• What I do best
• What my greatest accomplishments are
• What my best skills are
• What jobs am I really best suited for
• What this employer really wants
• What would make ME the ideal candidate for this job
• What would prevent my resume going in Suzie's round file

As you begin to focus your resume preparation on the critical factors, strategies begin to emerge. You begin to recall

• A complex problem you solved for a former employer
• A cost saving process you designed
• A money making product you developed
• A patent you obtained
• A contribution you made to your company's bottom line

As you begin to recall these significant career milestones, your resume preparation will have provided some means for making notes and compiling those notes so they are ready and available when time to keystroke comes.

Your resume preparation will have you planning

• your next steps
• your next contacts
• the questions you will need to answer
• the questions you will pose
• ways to meet the "right" people
• ways to get the "inside scoop" on a relevant job opening.

Truly effective resume preparation will create a plan, focusing your efforts on the things that matter. You will understand the "80/20 Rule" - 80 percent of your accomplishments will come from 20 percent of your efforts. Having your plan keeps you on track, virtually eliminating wasted motion.

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Effective Resume Preparation Makes Your Writing More Effective

Your resume preparation is going to focus on analyzing your own assets and liabilities. You will invest some of your most profitable time identifying the aspects of your education and professional history that make you the most valuable candidate for a job. You will invest time in articulating your assets in the way that enables you to present yourself in the very best light possible.

Regardless of the industry you pursue, your resume preparation will enable you to produce a document that identifies the qualities that make you sparkle, the unique factors about your history that some employer has already paid hundreds, if not thousands of dollars to uncover.

You will have learned enough about the industry, the employer, and the position, to comb through your background and dovetail your assets into the needs of your new job.

• Your research
• your plan of attack
• your contacts
• your history and
• your collected documents

will all converge to bring about a document, effectively written, that has the content to make your potential employer open his sleepy eyes, pick up the phone and call you for that interview.

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Effective Resume Preparation Makes Your Writing More Precise

Slapping a few words on a couple of sheets of fancy paper and sticking a name on the top of it will never reach out and grab an employer like a document written by someone who has done thorough resume preparation, has legitimate qualifications for a job and writes with a passion and precision of a big game hunter stalking the trophy of a lifetime.

Even if you are not a hunter, and are horrified at shooting animals, please be patient with me to understand an important point about resume preparation - precision targeting. What follows is not an advocacy of killing animals, but an attempt to draw an important parallel between different methods of resume preparation.

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Effective Resume Preparation Increases Your Opportunity to Interview

Your employer:

• knows what she needs
• has developed a job description
• advertised to find an appropriate slate of candidates to interview for the position, and
• scans the incoming flood of paper.

Some of the submissions are flat out flaky, wanting to be CEO just because he is the first member of his family to get a GED.

Others are documents that reflect blatant disrespect for the company by not even spelling it's name correctly or getting the right address.

Still others are filled with blotches, stains and white-out, crumpled as if previously retrieved from the trash can.

Some are so error-riddled the white-outs make them look amateurish.

Yet still others are

• asking for a job that is not open
• presenting unreasonable demands
• showing inappropriate education and/or inappropriate experience, while
• some are so bland even Suzie scratches her head wondering why she is reading them
.

You will also be more confident during your interview, knowing that your resume has gained this opportunity to present yourself in person to the people with the hiring power.

They liked

• what you wrote
• how you organized your presentation
• the fact that you know what they are looking for and
• have demonstrated you have the goods to do the job.

Rather than throwing $850 at some clerk to type up two pages of notes that were hand scrawled in 30 minutes in answer to her 15 question form and then thrown into MS Word's resume template, you have

• re-familiarized yourself with the details of
• your outstanding accomplishments
• your skills
• your education and
• your abilities
• researched
• the industry
• the company
• the job
• clearly articulated a precisely crafted
• career objective
• professional summary

all of which speak directly to your attention to detail, your comprehension of what this company needs and your capability to fill the position, once hired. Now, you are prepared to address the hard questions about how you did what you did, and the net effects your efforts had, both on your company and in your industry. Out of hundreds, you are now one selected to interview.

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Effective Resume Preparation Saves Time in the Writing Phase

With effective resume preparation, you have spent a lot of time recalling and documenting details.

You have researched multiple relevant sources, analyzed your own assets, the expectations of potential employers, located a job lead for which you are perfectly suited, and now, you are ready to begin keystroking.

You have wordsmithed

• your Professional Summary
• your Career Objective
• your Outstanding Accomplishments
• your Prime Job Skills

You have

• detailed your Professional History
• detailed your Education
• detailed your Honors and Awards
• detailed your Publications
• detailed your Patents
• detailed your Presentations
• loaded your resume with Keywords, among other steps.

At this point, your resume preparation has paid off, and section drafts are ready to be

• laid out to draw your reader's eyes to your most outstanding assets
• placed into a document
• edited
• proofed
• proof-read
• reviewed by at least two competent confidants
• proofed again
• re-proof-read and
• printed

The time savings at this point are enormous. You have all your data in one neat little package, and if you have done your preliminary work on a computer, your task is made so much easier by cutting and pasting, then editing and formatting.

You are ready to do some visual artistry, write an outstanding cover letter, and send off this advertisement of yourself - yes - that's exactly what a resume is - an advertisement of a product - YOU!!!

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Effective Resume Preparation Also Involves Some Rather Mundane Things

Any serious attempt at a resume preparation involves getting STUFF together.

What's STUFF?

STUFF has to do with the tools you may need to do this job of resume writing.

You will need a computer with appropriate software. You will need

• STUFF to write on
• STUFF to write with
• STUFF to organize what you've written
• STUFF to send what you've written
• STUFF to plan your job search
• STUFF to document your contacts and results of your campaign
• STUFF to hand out to people
• STUFF to display your documents
• places to store your STUFF and documents for easy access and
• some relatively quiet space to use your STUFF to work on your documents.

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