Championing the employable paper-self

Your resume is your foot-in-the-door. It's the face you show to potential employers, before you show your real face (the human one, on the front of your head). It's both a foot and a face, figuratively. Face it, in order to get that foot in the door, you want to put your best foot forward.

In my effort to do just that, here are some things that I have re-learned about developing a resume:

• Use "power words". An example of a power word would be "championed". As in: "Championed new project aimed at training new employees." The use of the word "championed", rather than, say... "supported" or "ran", is the proverbial difference between lightning and the lightning bug. You may have just put a big employee handbook on the new guy's desk, and pointed him in the direction of the can when he had to relieve himself, but on paper you were an unwavering warrior for the corporate neophyte. Obviously the rest of that bullet could use some "power" as well. You don't champion projects; you champion "initiatives". It's not training, it's "ongoing, intensive knowledge share".
  
  
• You did more than you thought you did. If you did your best on something, but it did not improve whatsoever, I think we can fairly say you "maximized" it. If you looked at something, you definitely "surveyed" it. If you looked at it everyday for more than 30 seconds, you "regularly analyzed" it. If you told Chuck from Accounting that it sucked, then you offered a "critical assessment".
  
  
• Remember that there is power in the indirect. You didn't rewrite a project plan, you "Retooled a broad-based priority initiative". You might even put "extremely" in front of "broad-based". Nope, check that. That's another tip -- don't over-sell. The base of an initiative can only be so broad, after all.

• Use those clever checkmark bullets where possible. It says "can-do go-getter".
  
  
• Show me the numbers. Another key element to resume writing, according to the published gurus, is showing quantitative results. Show me, don't tell me... that type of thing. Add some more power to what is already an immensely powerful statement of your professional worth with gems like:
  "Unearthed over 12 % savings in revamping $34 million divisional capital outlay. 47."

I am learning of the power of bullets and words and numbers. And I am adminstering them effectively, endeavoring to attain adequate benchmarks in employment acquisition, with marked increases such as a 220% jump in syllabic output.

If that doesn't get my face in the door, I don't know what will.