Avoiding the shoulds of executive resume writing

Avoiding the shoulds of executive resume writing As you might imagine, I see hundreds of executive resumes on a regular basis, sent to me with the same accompanying verbiage: Ive sent this out many times, and have yet to receive a call what am I doing wrong? I engaged a professional resume writer to create this for me, but it still doesnt work. Im not sure what to do. After writing this, Im not sure it represents me, and Im reluctant to send it out as is please help! What I find most often by reading through these documents is that the candidates real value is buried somewhere usually between the lines of various accomplishments, in too much detail crammed into the resume, or in vague statements that really dont describe the performance. There are plenty of resume writing books (including one by yours truly) that will lead you, step by step, through the process of what to do/what to avoid. You can also find tons of executive resume samples that give you a sharper visual of what an effective leadership resume looks like. And last, but certainly not least, you can nail down plenty of advice on resume writing from nearly every corner of the Internet. Heres what I find in nearly every casewith the understandable intent of doing it the right way, your executive resume is written using an over-abundance of shoulds: I should use these phrases The recruiter should be able to see what I meaneven if I dont fully describe it I should copy this idea My friends said I should tweak the resume this way The other resume service said this should work My take? Start over! Take should out of your vocabulary, and aim instead at defining your value and brand before writing a single word. After all, your career cant be summed up with what others say is relevant, but with what YOUVE achieved that already has relevance.