The Resume

If you read enough attorney resumes, you cannot help but conclude that they are almost all clones of one another. Consequently, they are eminently and immediately forgettable. This is the worst thing you can do to your aspirations for employment.

Once the job interviews are finished and the interviewer(s) sit down to sift through all of the resumes and interviews, they tend to zero in on those candidates who are the most memorable—in both good ways and bad. The vast majority of job aspirants tend to wind up somewhere in the amorphous, indistinguishable middle, meaning that, along with the ones who made a poor impressions, they too are likely to be among the rejects.

Make it clear to prospective employers that you are different from your competitors in as many important and positive ways as possible. Doing so can put some distance between you and other candidates and enable you to “out-compete” them.

The following techniques are ones that experience and history show impress employers:

First Impressions
Deciding What Comes Next
The “Order of Battle”
“Hybridizing” Your Resume
Achievements, Accomplishments, Outcomes, Results
Storytelling
Every Job-Search Document Is a Writing Sample
Maximize Reader-Friendliness
Last Impressions