Your resume is a blueprint of your achievements. It is the first step you take towards getting the job of your dreams. Therefore it is imperative that you present a resume which will be impossible to ignore and will make an instant mark on your future employees. Work towards making your resume attractive and appealing. But never neglect including vital information as this is what the resume is actually meant for.

Don’t prepare your resume in a hurry. Spend proper time and give it careful thought. Bear in mind some important things:

The very first thing you need to do is to understand why you are writing the resume. Know the company you are going to target and bear in mind their likes and dislikes.

The next thing you need to do is select a resume which suits your designation as well as your experience. Never use too many fonts. It is taboo to use designer fonts as they look very unprofessional. It is better to stick to the conventional Arial or the Times New Roman font styles. Make use of bullet points to highlight blocks in your resume. Use catchy jargon but never go overboard with it. Maintain a proper hierarchy and include your professional details before you include your personal information.

“One size fits all” is not a very good idea, so one resume may impress a particular company while it may not seem very impressive to another company. Therefore it is a good practice to customize and update your resume before every interview.

Never lie. Your resume should provide information which is authentic. Ensure that the information you include is relevant and to the point.

Be precise and concise. A very long resume is bound to reach the trash can. Ideally your resume should not exceed more than two pages.

Spare a thought to the cover letter as well. A resume without a cover letter seems incomplete and unprofessional. Therefore you need to include a cover letter as well.

Remember haste makes waste. So it is better to sit down and think clearly. Draft a rough resume and discuss it with someone who can give you a critical feedback before you finally make the final copy.

If you bear these tips in mind, you surely stand a chance of getting your resume noticed.

Let’s put aside grammar and spell-checking and all of that for a minute. Everyone does some sort of technical or more substantive form of editing for their blog posts. But most editors use a combination of editing techniques to increase the value and the appeal of their content. Most of them are easy enough that anyone can apply them and it doesn’t take a whole lot of time nor expertise to do so. Perhaps you can use it to improve your own posts.

Open with a key point

I am guilty sometimes of being so taken away by telling a story that I forget to tell my readers what they are going to get out of it. You need to give your readers something to look forward to. It is basic human instinct to think “what’s in this for me?” and that’s a question you should look to answer from the get go. Readers need to know if a post is worth their time or not, and altering your posts to make sure that it does measure up to this test is the first of a few editing techniques you can use. The temptation is to make your point further into a post. Don’t. Hit early, hit hard and go home. Even if you are looking to tell a story, moving the key point up the order will not harm a story telling style. But it will affect the way your readers see the post, and that makes a big difference.

Mirror the content in the title

If I were to write a post that says “5 tips to get ready of that crazy girlfriend” (not that I am, sweetheart…I love you…really), then I’d number the sub-topics one through five. If it’s a list of positives and negatives, I’d make sure those are clearly mentioned. Make the content mirror the title and it will be a better fit in readers minds. The title is a promise, and the content should be its fulfillment. Failing to do so could leave your readers feeling dissatisfied.

Link back to a theme

Many posts, especially if elaborate, end up seeming disjointed. Don’t make a point in a paragraph or sub-heading and simply move on. End each paragraph with a concise point that sums everything up. Think of it as a takeaway, and it’s something for the reader to mull over, your entire argument in one sentence. It aids comprehension. And helps readers understand you better. If needed, add links or references as needed to support your argument and build credibility.

I don’t know if this happens to you at all, but it used to happen to me a whole lot of the time. The very mention of writing or putting my thoughts down on paper (or a computer screen) would leave me with the most terrible feeling in the depths of my stomach. I thought of how my words would be dissected with clinical precision and great gusto by those that read your blog. In any case, I used to feel that there are so many more meaningful and popular blogs that used to talk about the same things I did. How could I ever be as popular as them or as awesome as some of my favorite writers? How could I mimic their writing styles?

This is something that very many writers know fully well. It’s a crippling, debilitating, terrible fear to have, that you will never be good enough. It can be inspiring and intimidating to want to write as well as your favorites. It’s something to aspire to, or something that can really be your personal Everest, something you might never really surmount or that you feel will never surmount. But with time, I have learned something; the more you try to be someone, you are not being true to yourself. When you do that, your writing can never be of the quality you want it to be. What’s worse, it will never get the audience you want to since you’re simply an imitation of someone else, sometimes in a painfully obvious manner.

You must do everything in your power to avoid the paralysis that besets any writer when they think of trying to live up to the stature of their favorite wordsmith. But stop comparing yourself, you’re never going to sound like them just like they can’t naturally sound like you. Be comfortable in your own skin, and you will taste a lot more success once you start doing that. It doesn’t matter that everyone else has been at it for much longer, or even that they have more listening to their every word. Do you believe that there will never be a new face on the scene ever? If you do, allow me to tell you are wrong. No, I’m right, you’re wrong. Let’s run with that. A new star will always emerge, and it could be you. Start now, blog away and you could get noticed.

Every one of us (and yes, that includes you) has something about them that is fantastic and unique, your own calling card, your own secret weapon in the fight to win minds and eyeballs. Tap into that which makes you uniquely you and you will prevail. No other blogger can present your experiences, your memories and your perspective quite like you, and this is a fact. Pick a topic that you find interesting and are passionate about and write about it as well as you can. Just follow your own writing styles and watch the hits keep on coming.

Dark, moody, mysterious and enigmatic, Donald Draper is the alpha male and a seductress in male form. He’s powerful, he’s charismatic and he sends everyone scurrying for cover when he gets pissed. Of course, it helps that he is portrayed as a creative genius, a glass of bourbon in one hand and a pack of cigarettes at arms length to keep him company. All he has to do is have his back turned to the camera and look out over the city, his city, and he captures the collective consciousness of a generation. Our generation. He is incredibly cool and magentic, and he is a writer just like you or I.

Peggy, Don, heck even Roger; they just sit around and wait for the perfect idea to hit them, but it is Donald Draper that convinces them to spend the big bucks on ad campaigns in the Emmy Award winning series. Millions fawn over his carefully constructed campaigns and consumer culture and his character spawns industries and helps them become a household name like no other. And all he needs is the power of words. Nothing less, nothing more. Now that is very cool. You think it, you write it, you get it out there, and it changes the world. There is no way that cannot be construed as cool.It seems so far away, just like the generation portrayed in Mad Men seems so far away, but it really isn’t. Let me pick out a few select quotes from the hit show and I’ll explain how they apply to blogging and even life just as much as they do to advertising.

“I’ll never get used to the fact that most of the time it looks like you’re doing nothing.” ~ Roger Sterling

A writer’s blessing and curse is that he can be just looking out the window and still working, or sitting at a pool side and still having the gears churning. It’s relaxing. It’s enjoyable. It’s all part of the workday. Sometimes, just doing nothing is the best thing you can do, for if you don’t it’ll make your creativity dry up. So just stop and think on occasion. If anyone asks what’s on your mind, just say you’re working. It’s true.

“Fear stimulates my imagination.” ~ Donald Draper

Fear is a terrific thing, whether you believe it or not. If you’re afraid or anxious, it means you will be on edge and churning out some of your best ideas if you just let it flow unfettered. If you’re afraid, you have a cause to work towards, a reason to act. How many entrepreneurial stories have you heard of where the individual in question was broke and had to make things work lest he starve? It’s not just good luck that saw them prevail. Put a gun to your head and see the upturn in results, you’ll be amazed at what you can achieve when you will it to be so. I personally pledge to donate $100 each day to a political party I despise if I don’t hit my target of 1500 words a day. It’s a painful thought, but it works and it’s a powerful motivation. Find yours.

“A slogan’s nothing when you have a good idea.” ~ Peggy Olsen

The best of writers are a cornucopia of ideas. They will assiduously assimilate information at all time, listening, watching and reading away until they get that “Eureka!” moment. Finding the right idea is tricky, putting it across not so much for the skilled writer. Amateurs work the opposite way, writing the article and trying to stumble upon the idea while doing so. Take one idea, but make it a great one, and build your entire article around that one premise. Ideas are everything, and it takes care of everything else.