Matt K., M.D., an internist in private practice, became my outplacement client after he resigned his position. He was one of the best, brightest, and most creative clients I've ever had; yet he struggled for several weeks writing his resume. He agonized over it and created several different versions, but when he finished, he had a resume he loved. It fit him. He felt proud of it. Best of all, it worked. After an aggressive job search, Matt got the job he wanted. Here's his personal story, transcribed from a taped interview:

"When I wrote the likes and dislikes from past jobs I ended up with something like 23 pages. It's difficult to remember back that many years, and in some cases it's even difficult to remember last year. But I keep revising my lists.

"Driving to the office in the morning I would remember something I liked or disliked or something that was a strength or a weakness or something I had done wrong or something I had done right. Every time I thought of something, that led me to something else.

"Eventually, the likes and dislikes led me into the list of accomplishments. Maybe I approached the assignment backwards, because I looked at my accomplishments to find out what made me feel good. What made me feel bad turned out to be what I did poorly. Those were my weaknesses. And it was absolutely necessary for me to get all that out on paper and take a look at it and come to some conclusions.

"I approached it with a vengeance because it was very important to me-although I didn't necessarily recognize it at the time.

"The accomplishments were like a revelation to me. I realized that for the past ten years I had done many good things. And writing my achievements was an objective approached. It wasn't like I was trying to fool myself or trying to make myself feel better for no reason."

"When you can quantify things and see how much money you saved, or how much money you've earned, or what you did for people, it's very objective and you can say, "Boy, I accomplished an awful lot in ten years."

"What's truly amazing is that I didn't recognize that when I was actually doing the work. It made me feel good at the time, but pretty soon the good feelings were gone, and I never really put that together in my mind. I never looked back and said, "This is a very good feeling, I did an awful lot of good work there."

"It was a struggle in many ways remembering what I'd done. I went back to the clinic and went through four or five years of chronological files just to jog my mind, to pull things back into memory.

"But it's amazing how much I lost in terms of 'what I was doing when' during the past ten years. So it was a struggle to put those things together.

"But there again, once you think of something, then maybe the next day you think of something else, and then maybe that afternoon you think of something else—or five things—and it builds on itself once you put yourself in that mindset.

"The resume came out of the list of accomplishments and that was a particular struggle for me, because by the time I had gotten to the accomplishments—and that list was so long—then you switched tracks on me and told me I had to cut it down to two pages. (Laughs.)

"It's difficult, when you finally look at your accomplishments and begin to feel good about them—it's difficult then to try to boil them down into a manageable, readable document because by natural tendency, I believe you want to put everything good you've ever done into that particular paper. You want to demonstrate to other people how really good you are.

"With your advice, I was able to cut out a lot. You recommended that I prepare a supplementary list of accomplishments as an addendum to the resume to use in one-on-one situations. That proved to be a very valuable tool.

"It showed not only that I was prepared, but also that there was more about me than the resume was designed to show. It stimulated interest and gave us something other than the resume to talk about. That was a very important part of it.

"The resume truly was a struggle, given the criteria set forth: if you can get it on two pages do it—and if you absolutely can't, then put it on three pages. Again, I suppose it's a bit of ego, it's a bit of arrogance to want to list everything you've ever done in your entire life on this particular document.

"The other thing is the basic mindset. You want to communicate everything possible about yourself, particularly to a reader who might think that quality and quantity are synonymous. You can lose sight of the objective that you have to keep it quick and short and concise, and your resume is really nothing more than a tool to get you in the door. If it's eight pages long and nobody reads the first page, your chances of getting in the door are simply nonexistent.

"But it's difficult to come to some happy medium with regard to the resume—the length, the contents, the wording. This is the document you're relying on to reach your objective. I mean it truly is. It is your primary sales tool. I wanted mine to be absolutely perfect. I wanted it to say everything and do everything that was possible for it to say and do—be perfectly typed, be perfectly punctuated.

"I think I went through 10 or 15 edits of the material, because this was the document that was really going to help me reach my objective. To say that I agonized over that is a bit of an understatement.

"You stood back and let me struggle with it. You were perceptive enough to know that I needed an awful lot of time and an awful lot of room to work on my own. That's how I work best. I needed to be given a basic objective, a basic idea of what needed to be done and then just be told to work and do it.

"I felt very good that you stayed out. You gave me advice and help when I needed it, but only when I'd ask and that's exactly what I wanted. I also knew—I guess I didn't know at the time—but I know now that I did indeed need to agonize over that resume. That was the paper that was going to represent me. Had you pushed in one way or another or not given me the time to make it right, then I wouldn't have been comfortable with the document. And I needed to be comfortable with the resume in order to promote it and myself in an interview situation."

There's no overnight resume
Many resume books imply that the resume writing process should be quick, easy, or "overnight." These claims sell books, but they're seriously misleading. As in all of life, there's no free lunch, there's no quick fix. Resume writing, if done well, is often a struggle. Writing of any kind is a struggle. It's a well-known fact that many famous writers hate it. Richard Bach, author of Jonathan Livingston Seagull, said, "I hate writing, but I love having written."

Don't be afraid of struggling. Don't be upset if you can't get your resume done overnight. Stay with the process. Don't run away from it. In the end, you'll be greatly rewarded. When your resume is complete, ask if you feel better about yourself. If you don't, you haven't done the exercise right.