But, if you are looking for a career change, a sweet-sounding resume can make all the difference in the world – even in today’s Monster.com world of online recruitment!

Make Your Resume Your Personal Marketing Tool!
A great resume is the first and most important step in landing the job of your dreams. Think of your resume as your “calling card” — a document that speaks for you when you can’t be there to do the talking. Your resume can make or break your chances of getting an interview, so it’s critical that yours is a polished, professional selling tool tailored to showcase your strengths. When putting together your resume, you will want to address the following areas:

Overall Appearance — If you’re mailing hard copies of your resume to prospective employers, make it stand out. It is surprising how many resumes are printed on poor-quality paper, replete with misspellings, typos and other errors. And when you think about it, would you want to hire such a sloppy, careless person? Probably not! When preparing your resume, keep the following considerations in mind:

• Have you triple-checked spelling and grammar?
• Is everything in the proper tense?
• Is the resume printed on good quality paper with a cover letter and envelope to match?
• Is the printing readable (including style of typeface and clarity of copy)?
• Are the margins wide enough to make reading easy, with headings, job titles, company names and time spent at jobs clearly indicated or highlighted in some fashion?

Organization — Some resumes include so much detail that readers find it overwhelming to wade through all the information. To make sure your resume gets read — not tossed — by prospective employers, organize it in a simple, straightforward manner and make sure that people can get all the pertinent information they need at a glance. Keep your individual entries consistent and use bullet points when you can for clarity. The usual set-up for effective resumes consists of your personal heading at the top, then professional objective, experience, education, other activities, training, licenses held, etc.

• Objective
  Your objective should be a one-sentence description of your job-hunting goal. Make it broad enough to spotlight your qualifications. An example: “Seeking account management position in a creative, fast-paced agency environment where organizational abilities, “people” skills and management expertise are required.”

• Professional Experience
  Your experience is what is most important to your prospective employer, so you must be sure to relay this information clearly, concisely and legibly. Instead of writing something like “managed department, made all appropriate decisions,” include details like size of budget, amount of sales, number of people supervised if applicable. If you were instrumental in increasing productivity, spearheading an important project or landing new accounts, say so. Avoid vague phrasing and terms. List all achievements, successes and accomplishments.

One resume caveat to remember: don’t claim that you did something you really didn’t do. No matter how tempting it may be to stretch the truth a tiny bit, chances are you WILL get caught.

• Education
  Include your colleges, degrees, honors, advanced training, certifications, and if you like, your GPA. You may want to describe how your education has prepared you for the position you are seeking. If you have attended on-the-job training or professional seminars, mention them too.

• Other Activities
  You may include personal information like hobbies, interests, special achievements outside of work, community involvement, etc. Include anything you think is particularly unique or interesting. Your goal is to persuade your reader to want to meet you — in an interview!