So now that your resume is spit-spot, has the right font, paper type, is free of spelling errors, typos, grammatical errors, colloquialisms or just plain ‘bad English’ and is professionally structured using the appropriate guidelines, what are the next resume objectives?

You want to give your resume power!

Action Words. Action Words equal resume power. When writing your resume, it’s imperative that you use language that will catch any reviewer’s or interviewer’s eye: using the right kinds of verbs, specifically, or ‘action words’, can be the key to getting one step closer to your interview.

Using these types of words shouldn’t be limited to your resume either: while in an interview, they are a powerful tool that will help describe your achievements and capabilities in a positive and complimentary way. Later on we’ll talk about how you can use these action words to ‘sell’ yourself or market yourself successfully to any potential client or employer. It’s called “the 60 Second Sell”, and it’s a sure-fire technique that can get you hired every time. But for now, lets’ take a look at the following words – you might want to write them down and compare them with what’s currently in your resume – then make the appropriate changes to your resume so that it is as powerful a component of your Marketing YOU Package as it can be.

Here they are: Accelerated, achieved, advised, approved, assisted, built, calculated, completed, conceived, controlled, coordinated, created, decreased, defined, designed, developed, directed, earned, edited, engineered, evaluated, found, generated, implemented, improved, invented, managed, operated, organized, planned, proved, revised, scheduled, tested, trained, verified, wrote.

Of course there are others, but you get the gist of it. Strong, positive and to the point. That’s what you always want to aim for to give your resume power. And now, it’s pretty dry and obvious stuff, but the following are the basic components each resume must include, and we might as well just go over them to make sure nothing gets lost in translation: Number 1: the Project Objective. That means what you intend to accomplish on the job, a brief overview of how you intend to do so, and a short story about how you have done this successfully in the past. Number 2: a Summary of Your Qualifications which includes your Professional Skills, Work Experience, Education, any Honours and Awards you may have received or won, and your personal information which should not include your marital status or children’s names or ages, but should include any professional organizations you belong to and/or articles you may have co-authored.

Top it all off with a list of pre-checked references, current titles and accurate contact information and there you have it – a perfect resume… almost. What’s missing? Well, just a few words about content, that’s all.

To view other videos in the “Marketing You” Video Series about marketing yourself to employers and recruiters please view Introduction to Marketing You, Success and Creative Visualization, 60 Second Pitch,  Job Interview Tips, Resume Writing and Resume Cover Letters videos. The next video in this series is Resume Tips and Making a Great First Impression Video 6.

You may also want to download one of our Marketing You FREE E-books or visit our vast Resources Section including Tax Tip Videos and the Interview Coach articles.