Despite conventional wisdom, you do not want to start your job search with a major resume effort. To do this puts the cart before the horse. A resume is really a kind of ad or brochure. Before developing an ad campaign, an advertising agency carefully targets its market and defines its customers' needs and priorities. Only after identifying these factors, does the copywriter describe features and benefits most useful to the targeted market. In your case, you are the product. You bear the responsibility of selling your most important experiences and attributes to potential employers on a person-to-person basis. If you write your resume before you have found out what they need, you are missing an opportunity to present your best case.

Have you ever tried to hire a new employee? While looking for a job is tough, finding a good employee is no picnic either. Picture yourself as the CEO of a small to midsize company looking for a new CFO. After carefully constructing your ad, you wade through scores of resumes, schedule and conduct several rounds of interviews, screen the princes from the frogs, and hope when you choose the best candidate, he will say yes. For a busy executive, this can be a long, expensive, and nerve-racking process with no guarantee of a positive result.

My main job was developing talent. I was a gardener providing water and other nourishment to our top 750 people. Of course, I had to pull out some weeds, too.
Jack Welch