Writing Your Resume: Tailoring

The lazy job hunter will create a single resume and start emailing it all over creation.

An effective job hunter will find a job or career they want and create a specific resume for each opportunity to which they might apply.

Yes, this is more work. It means you have to have multiple copies of your resume. But would you sell a product to a CNN audience the same way you would sell it to an MTV audience?

No. So why are you sending the same resume for a marketing job as you would for a training job? Different audience, different resume.

So how do you tailor your resume? Take your generic resume and put it against the job description. Look for keywords in the description and see where they match your experience or personality. Rewrite the sentences in your resume using the keywords from the job description. If a job description asks for a multi-tasker then put a sentence in your summary that you are a multi-task person. Need customer service skills? Highlight your jobs that have put you on the front line dealing with customers.

To clarify: you will always begin with a generic resume that highlights your strong points. You can then tweak the resume before each submission to be more appealing for a given job.