Marketing yourself is your head start towards charting a great career path. The first step for this is a well thought-out and conceptualised resume. Resume becomes the  ‘ice breaker’ with prospective employers and therefore requires a lot of personal attention and care.

The driving force for getting the ‘big break’ can be different for everybody. It can be a good compensation, that big jump to the next level, a multinational company, a better boss/workplace, larger role, location change and so on.  But for all these reasons, the basic prerequisite is a well-designed resume.

A formal document

A  well-written resume is a formal document with the primary goal of evoking  good interview calls. Considering that a good resume should attract the right employers, it needs to be articulated effectively. The advantages of a well-crafted resumes are innumerable:

*Building a personal brand for yourself
*Positioning your professional competencies and skills   
*Presenting your personal strengths
nAttracting the best employers
nSegregating you from ‘the rest of the crowd’
nCreating the right environment for the interview discussion to be steered in  your direction It is not the resume itself that is critical; it is the energy, planning, strategy, commitment and most importantly the ‘key words’ to present yourself. Just like for a professional athlete or actor it is the preparation that ‘makes’ or ‘breaks’ the performance, so is it with resume preparation. Simply writing down your life’s story without much thought and reason and distributing it to potential employers may result in dismal results.
When you pour so much energy and commitment in bringing forth a ‘great resume’, the result is a positive approach towards the entire job search process. The outcome is a win-win situation primarily stemming from the extent of efforts put into the resume writing process. Of course, the research efforts about the company & the position also value-add towards an excellent match-making between the job seeker, job and the Company.
Value proposition
Never oversell yourselves or underplay your capabilities. Most resumes lack focus and connectivity. Your resume should simply state your ‘value proposition’ to prospective employers.
Another pertinent aspect that needs attention is designing resumes customised for different positions, roles, industries which makes a tremendous impact. Therefore, you should never make one resume that fits all positions.  In fact, there are distinct formats to suit specific backgrounds. This makes your resume impacting! 
Ultimately, the resume has to not only to give you the boost as a brand image tool, but also the words to depict yourself as a professional and a person has to be authentic. It has to be realistic so that you can carry yourself through successfully to the interview phase to finally  land yourself that great dream job and then there onwards while performing your dream role.

Source: Career Catalyst. The writer can be reached at  umamoney@vsnl.com