Ah...the resume. If you've ever written one you know what a challenging task it can be.

The Gregg Reference Manual tells us some fundamental facts about resumes:

* The purpose of your resume is to get you an employment meeting. An interview. Your resume will not get you a job.

* Your resume is not a medium for telling prospective employers about your long-term goals and aspirations. It is where you appeal to their hiring motivations by demonstrating what you can do for them, communicating experience you have acquired and skills you have developed.

With these basic concepts in mind, let's summarize several other elements that your contemporary resume must include:

R = Review of your qualifications E = Essential information only S = Showcase your value U = You are Unique! M = Market yourself E = Effectively gets you noticed

-------------------------------------------- R = Review of your qualifications -------------------------------------------- What skills, education, or experience (paid or unpaid) do you have that make you ideal candidate for opportunity, industry, or career you are pursuing? These data bits are building blocks of any resume. They are absolute musts.

Most self-written resumes do a pretty decent job of listing skills and education, but fail miserably in Experience section. More on how to address this challenge when we get to "S" below.

---------------------------------------- E = Essential information only ---------------------------------------- Your resume should not be a voluminous listing of everything you have done, everywhere you have done it, and every club or association you've ever been affiliated with. Chisel your copy down to content that is relevant to your target job/career path.

Suppose you are a marketing professional. Your memberships in American Marketing Association, Direct Marketing Association, and Public Relations Society of America belong on your resume.

Your memberships in local dog trainers club and American Dog Owners Associaiton can clearly be left off (unless you are applying for a marketing position with Humane Society).

1. Play “find meeting” by changing location and time of your meeting at last minute. 2. Don’t bother to book your meeting room in advance. Lead group from room to room trying to find another place to meet. 3. Bring 5 handouts for 20 attendees. 4. Leave and say, “I’ll be back. I’m going to make handouts.” 5. Don't use an agenda because “everybody knows why we are here.” 6. Keep an attitude that “meetings are not work.”

”Meetings are indispensable when you don't want to do anything. " - John Kenneth Galbraith (1908 - )

7. Say “I don’t need a microphone” and proceed to yell for entire meeting or talk too softly for back of room to hear. 8. Combine two unrelated meetings into one big meeting, ensuring that half will not care about half of meeting.

“Soufflé is more important than you think. If men ate soufflé before meetings, life could be much different.” Jacques Baeyens, French consul general in NYC