STEP ONE:  Targeting Your Career and Audience

You must have a clear idea of what you want to accomplish in your professional life in order to maximize the impact of your resume for your targeted audience -- the hiring manager or graduate school admissions director. 

1. Making a lateral move?
2. Seeking a promotion?
3. Career transitioning?
4. Pursuing admission into a graduate program?*

For numbers 1-3 above, the most effective way to begin targeting your resume is to search openings that appeal to you on job boards (i.e. Monster, Hot Jobs. CareerJournal), internal company postings, or newspaper classifieds. 

With these in hand, you can highlight the qualifications you will need to be considered and the duties you would be expected to assume.  Every match in terms of qualifications and experience will serve as key words** in your resume, as well as provide focus so that the resume can be tailored for your targeted audience. The more closely the content of your resume matches the content of these postings, the more likely you will be asked to interview.

*    Resumes provided for graduate school admission showcase your skills, professional experience, accomplishments, and academic history in much the same way as “job” resumes.  The difference is that an admissions resume will focus on what transitions well to the classroom, not to the workplace.

**  Key words include industry-specific jargon or acronyms (i.e. "generally accepted accounting principles" (GAAP) for accountants; "Certified Professional Resume Writer" (CPRW) for resume writers; "Series 7 licensing" for brokers; "initial public offering" (IPO) for investment bankers; "at-risk child" for social workers; "Level 2 Training" for physicians; "intellectual property law" for attorneys; "triage" for nurses; and nouns or noun phrases indicating qualifications or required tasks (i.e. general ledger, word processing, contract negotiations, benefits, payroll, closing (for sales people); catering services, new menu items, capacity planning (for chefs); logistics, quality assurance, advertising campaigns, product launches, staffing, training, orientations. Companies that employ scanners require a set number of hits on key words before the hiring manager will personally review the applicant’s resume.  It is always wise to incorporate as many key words as possible into your resume.