"The Pre-Resume Process: Planning for the Document that Can Change Your Life"

A resume establishes your credentials and makes your case. A good resume writer can help you, or you can do it yourself. Before writing this crucial document you need to go through some careful analysis. Whether or not you hire a professional resume writing service, you will be more effective if you take the correct initial steps. The best professional resume writer will help you through this process, too.

According to one survey, people spend more time planning their vacations than their careers. The result? Their vacations turn out better than their careers. Some long-established professionals still don't know what careers they really want.

If you don't map out your career chances are you will also neglect your resume. So the first step is some introspection. Before writing the resume, think about the kind of job you want.

People can end up channeled into careers without ever quite consulting what they really want to do. Often they'll take a job just because they like the pay or prestige. Pay and prestige are important, but they aren't everything. To get a better bead on what you really like, ask yourself:

As you develop the resume, you'll want to describe your experience in the context of the position you plan to seek.

So answer the following questions and be utterly, even painfully, honest with yourself. Respond fully, with answers you'd never consider showing others. And keep working on it.

What Do You Want to Do?

The ideal job for one person is agony for the next. If you don't enjoy your work, you're wasting your life. Though many people may not savor their jobs, you don't have to join them. In fact:

1. They may not be trying hard enough. They may have wound up in a position they merely tolerate because they never made a real effort to do better. The check pays the bills, job momentum consumes their time and energy, and even though they know they can do better, they never do. The years go by and life slips past.

2. They may be unable to do exactly what they like. Not everyone can be a professional marine biologist, for instance. But that doesn't mean you have to flip burgers. You can always find work that comes closer to your ideal. And you can explore professions. The variety of positions seems infinite and you can learn about them, or go entrepreneurial and create your own.

3. They may not quite know what they like. People can end up channeled into careers without ever quite consulting what they really want to do. Often they'll take a job just because they like the pay or prestige. Pay and prestige are important, but they aren't everything. To get a better bead on what you really like, ask yourself:

What Do You Want the Position to Do for You?

It's one thing to know what you want to do and another to know what you want your job to do for you. Look at yourself, your career, and your goals. Your goals may well have changed in say, the past ten years ago. Ask yourself:

What Can I Do?

Suppose you want to learn juggling. You try to juggle three balls and find you can't do it. Do you give up, fearing the message of all those dropped balls, or persist through repeated failures to learn the art? In fact, no one can juggle three balls on the first try. Yet almost everyone can learn juggling. It just takes a willingness to aim a little higher and persist.

People tend to underestimate what they can accomplish. They fear failure from attempting feats that may be beyond them, and so focus on tasks they know they can achieve. It can be a terrible error, a source of the biggest failure of all.

Aim high and you may miss more often, but when you hit, you'll achieve things that lowballers never do. No one ranks your success in life by the percentage of goals you reach. Imagine a minor leaguer who's hitting .357 but refuses to go up to big leagues because his batting average could drop. Success comes in absolutes: How high are the goals you've achieved? Can you play in the big leagues at all?

Of course, don't be unrealistic. Don't strive for a Nobel Prize in physics if you have trouble understanding quadratic equations. But aim higher than you think you can reach. You'll find your quest feels sweeter and your life more energized. And you may even succeed.

Ask yourself:

Asking and answering these questions will challenge you. But it will also prepare you for the next step: Writing your resume.

Paul Freiberger is President of Shimmering Resumes, a resume-writing and career counseling service based in San Mateo, California. Paul is the author of several books and the winner of the Los Angeles Times book award. You can visit his website at http://www.shimmeringresumes.com.