Key Components to a Winning Resume
By Hardeep Arora
A resume is a big stepping stone to getting the job that you've always wanted. Because of this, make sure your resume stands out in the pile that is sitting on your interviewer's desk. When creating your resume, try putting yourself in the position of your potential employer. What would look for in an applicant? By doing this exercise, you will find you can create a better resume. Also keep in mind skills, accomplishments, college and post-graduate degrees, and work experience should be in reverse chronological order. Also, when drafting your resume, do it in such a way that your past experiences reflect your future goals. This will impress you potential employer and make it more likely that he will consider you as one of his new employees.

Creating that winning marketing resumes may require some time and concentration, but trust me, time spent working on your resume is time well spent, and when you finish it, you will feel like a million bucks, or at least as if you could make a million! Getting down to resume writing process may seem like an intimidating task at first, however following predefined guidelines and user-friendly worksheets will help you classify what you want to say, select the most effective way to say it, and eventually shape an attractive resume.

The first step during resume writing process is gathering all the information that you have to work with. The advent of computers to generate or transmit information may have simplified things but still has not eliminated the need for this step. While it is true that a clear, concise document composed of information that employers are most interested in knowing about a prospective applicant is the most effective resume, to start with, you need to sum up all the knowledge, experience, and skills that you have to offer.

The easiest way to get a good idea of what makes winning marketing resumes is to imagine being on the other side of the fence or hiring process. When you are in the position of a hiring manager, you will experience firsthand what employers like or dislike in an applicant, because you are the employer. The hiring manager spends less than a minute glazing through marketing resumes, therefore you need to have a sense of what an employer is thinking and looking for when he/she receives your resume.

Winning marketing resumes that lure employers typically captivate them with the following essential elements:

• Brief summarization of skills, strengths, and qualifications
• Noted accomplishments and most relevant industry expertise
• Work experience stated in reverse chronology
• Professional affiliations and technical skills
• College and post-graduate education

Because your resume is a self-marketing material, it should concern your future, not highlight your past. Think of the resume writing process as preparing a commercial about a new product - you! And just like a commercial, your resume needs to be customized for its targeted audience. The secret to getting a dream job is to craft your marketing resumes around the job you are striving for, not the ones you previously held. So before you even put pen to paper or initiating the resume writing process, you need to know your audience and ensure what kind of work you want to do next, and build your resume from your work experience, career goals, and education details that are then carefully selected and rephrased.

Create a resume that talks about your future by envisaging that you are Picasso with an empty canvas, in this case your computer screen, in front of you. Your task at resume writing process is to present yourself at your next job, using your experience, expertise, concerns, and personality, while making sure that the final version of the resume is not wordy, lengthy, or overdone. At first glance, your future-oriented resume may induce the employer to believe he is reading your past, but gradually as he gets drawn into it, he will find himself imagining you working for him. And that's precisely what makes him call you for an interview.

Sources:

Luisa Gerasimo. McGraw-Hill's Big Red Book of Resumes, The Editors of VGM Career Books

Deborah Perlmutter Bloch. How to Write a Winning Resume

Martin Yate. Knock 'em Dead 2006: The Ultimate Job Seeker's Guide

Susan Ireland. The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Perfect Resume

On the Net

How to Write That Winning Resume
www.nova.edu/career/forms/resume_presentation.ppt

How to Write A Winning Resume
www.careerjournal.com/jobhunting/resumes/19981202-kovach.html