Dear JobsBlog: I’m concerned about how to focus my resume. For instance, when listing my professional experience, should I only list past accomplishments that relate to the job I’m applying for? Or list all my big accomplishments?

- Over-Accomplished

Dear Accomplished: When it comes to accomplishments, you should list a little of both your job-related accomplishments and your major accomplishments. And good for you for knowing that “accomplishments” are the key here, not just a listing of prior job responsibilities.

I suggest starting with a general, one-size-fits-all resume that will serve as your "template." On this resume, list all the educational, professional, extracurricular, etc, accomplishments that you might want to mention if you were applying for a new job, regardless of what that job actually is. Personally, I update this master document about every 3 months to make sure I’m recording new accomplishments – and even dropping ones that just don’t measure up any longer.

Once you have your master resume, you can use this document to craft specialized resumes for a specific job, a discipline, an industry, or a company. This might mean trimming or deleting some accomplishments that don’t relate at all or don’t help your cause. It will also probably mean re-ordering some accomplishments to put the most relevant ones first or second under prior roles.

Finally, be sure to include a summary statement to the beginning of your resume where you can highlight the most relevant, important, and impressive info right up front.

Head on over to one of my former blogs to watch a screencast that Zoe (the other co-founder of JobsBlog) and I produced a couple years ago to talk about accomplishments on a resume... and the big What, How, and Why. Part 1 and Part 2. (I’m a geek; I know.)

Gretchen