The initial focal point for Your Plan is your resumé. More precisely, the initial focal point for Your Plan is your modular resumé.

So create a base resumé that can be quickly tailored to a specific interview. This base resumé contains all of your core messaging.

To be most effective, you must modify your resumé to appeal specifically to the decision-maker who will decide whether to interview you or not.

A Dozen Mechanical Things

1. It’s an ad.
Your resumé is a one-page ad with a single, focused and strategic objective. It must motivate someone to call you in for an interview.
That’s it.

2. Do your homework.
Read the research you’ve done on the agency and the decision-maker you’re about to contact. Refresh yourself on the agency’s web site. Print out pages. Highlight things and take notes. Prepare for a test. If you go into this test unprepared, it’s not just a bad grade. You won’t get the interview.

3. Write to an audience of one.
Your modular resumé should be a unique piece directed specifically to one person.
Vary the content of each section based on the sum total of your applied research. If the company is an aggressive, cutting-edge firm whose web site pushes creative boundaries, then skew your language in that direction. If the firm’s web site describes its strengths as “a global, integrated communications leader helping Fortune™ 100 corporations navigate the treacherous waters ahead,” you might want to tone it down and take a more conservative approach.

4. Objectives are specific to your audience.
If you decided to include an “Objectives” section (it’s not recommended you do this), you must make the objectives specific to the agency you’re interviewing with.
Get focused. Be proactive and assertive. Be honest. Don’t be humble.

...Read the remaining eight Modular Resumé tips in the book, plus "What Really Happens To Your Resumé"