You look for stars. You look for the makeup of artists who can have long lasting careers and who could be headliners.
Clive Davis

A resume is an important tool, but it can't get you a job. Only people can do that. If you want your job search to be successful, concentrate on people and prepare your resume to suit their needs.

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.