One of the challenges of developing or updating your resume is the objective review of yourself and your career activities. It is quite common to orient the content of the resume toward those skills and accomplishments of which you are most proud. However, if there is no direct or transferable value to the potential employer, that information will not help your goal of securing job interviews, and ultimately, new employment.

Before you put yourself on the market, you need to do an objective assessment of your strengths, skills, experiences and accomplishments. This assessment, however, must be tempered by market demand today and projected value tomorrow. Too many professionals, even at the executive level, overlook this critical factor when putting together their resumes.

Here is how to prepare your resume so that it is focused toward the employer’s needs and to stand out from among your competition:

1) Review ads for job openings in the classifieds and on the Internet within the range of positions that you will be targeting. This may be driven by the job type, discipline, or industry. Analyze the skills, experience and traits that they are looking for, and compare those aspects against your background.

2) Talk to everyone who might have insights to help you understand what your targeted employers are looking for. This includes your personal and professional networks, as well as executive recruiters who interface with employers every day.

3) As you are gathering information, assess where you may need additional professional development, and include this in your career action plan. For instance, you may possess a great deal of knowledge in a particular area, but if you don’t have sufficient technology skills for your discipline or industry, you will be passed over for a candidate who does.

4) If you do not currently have an email account, get one. It is imperative that your resume has an email address at the top. More and more employers are communicating with candidates this way. In addition, not having email capability makes you appear not up to speed with the contemporary way of doing business.

5) As you create your summary, be sure to write it in a way that will make the employer want to read further. Include not only your skills and experience, but also those traits that are unique to you – that will distinguish you from your peers. This is the one area of your resume where you can be subjective and promote yourself and your strengths.

6) After the summary, offer a list of key words: those buzz words of skills and traits that you possess and that your target audience is looking for, based on your research described above. As more employers are initially sorting their candidates electronically, these key words are essential. You need to be aware which are most likely to get you into the candidate pool selected for further review.

7) When choosing which format to choose to present your professional work experiences, (functional or chronological) consider this general guideline. If you are targeting a similar job or a similar industry, a chronological resume will work well. If you are changing careers, or want to do work which is different from your last job or two, a functional resume will help get you there.

8) When presenting your accomplishments, quantify them with specifics, such as dollars or percentages. Employers want to know that you are a professional who produces results. Stating that you were “responsible for” something does not have any meaning without saying what you actually did with those responsibilities.

9) Instead of using the heading “Education,” try “Education and Ongoing Professional Development.” Today’s employers value continuous learning. The broader heading will place an emphasis on your efforts to keep yourself current and marketable through the acquisition of new skills and knowledge.

10) Keep the overall format of your resume concise and easy to read. Long, dense narrative paragraphs won’t get read. The average reviewer will only spend about thirty seconds on any given resume. Streamline your information, using a bulleted format for readability.