Ever notice how some resumes grab your attention and hold if far longer than that first 10-15 second scan you always hear about, even to the point where your eyes seemed to be dragged to the important information?

In an age when resumes seem to be valued at a "dime a dozen," discovering what a really great resume can do feels more like finding a gold mine in your back yard.

Whether their creators did it on purpose or not, virtually all great resumes share the following characteristics:

• Key #1 - Focus. Every great resume is focused. The target job, audience and industry are specific.

Compare the difference between a light bulb and a laser. Both provide light, but the laser focuses its light with pinpoint precision, while the light bulb diffuses its light in every direction. In other words, successful resumes don't try to sell generic leadership/management skills to employers who have specific needs. They provide specific content on skills, accomplishments and benefits that are interesting to their target audience, instead of trying to offer all things to all people.

• Key #2 - Write with the employer's needs in mind. With few exceptions, every employer operates with the ultimate purpose of turning a profit.

Unfortunately, many resumes don't reflect an understanding of this purpose and focus on the person writing the resume. Self-centered resume writers fail repeatedly. Not to mention there is something ugly about them. On the other hand, successful resumes focus on the employer making money as a result of the job candidate potentially providing skills, services, and information of obvious value for the employer. They win by putting the needs and desires of the employer first and get rewarded in the process.

• Key #3 - Virtually every good resume shares something in common with successful newspapers and magazines: great headlines!

Any resume that consistently generates interest and gets interviews does so by quickly communicating the main theme of the job hunter with a compelling opening statement that pulls people into the text. People read resumes in "stay or bail" mode, meaning they constantly evaluate everything they see on whether they should keep reading or set it aside for another resume. The opening statement on any resume represents the single most powerful factor to influence people to stick around and find out more, or send you resume to oblivion.

• Key #4 - Once a good resume pulls a targeted visitor into the text, they provide focused, benefit-oriented information that plays to the reader's built-in need for good employees.

By providing narrowly focused content, the resume satisfies specific desires for the employer and, if you hit an area of interest, holds their attention for an extended period of time, and if you can convince them logically, gets them to offer you the interview. The next time you work on your resume, pull out this list and use it to evaluate the big picture. Knowing how and why resumes succeed or fail can predict the ultimate fate of just about any job search.

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