1.     Make sure that your resume is written to sell your skills and experience to the employer. It is your job to convince the employer that you’re the right person for the job and that they should at least call you for an interview. Ever line of your resume should be written with the intent of persuading them to pick up the phone and call you.

2.     Don’t miss the opportunity to connect your vision, skills, experience and employee brand to the employer’s core values. It will take a little research on your part to find out what the employer values and how you can tie into those values as a job candidate. Make it clear in your resume that your values line up with the values of the employer.

3.     When you are describing your work experience, you should highlight how you identified and solved problems for former employers. Preferably tell the story of your work history in numbers. For example, “I won 85 percent of litigation cases which went to trial” or “Brought in 100 new clients for the law firm in 2009.”  These are the types of stories that will take you from being just another job candidate to being seriously considered for the job.

4.     Make sure that you omit fluff from your resume and place the most critical information at the top of the page. You don’t want to take the chance that an employer will not get to the meat of your resume because you’ve hidden it within lots of extraneous fluff.  If something is not relevant to the job for which you are applying, omit it.