First impressions are vital when it comes to reviewing your resume. In a few seconds your chances of securing a call for an interview can be dashed if your resume doesn't showcase your best skills and experience right up front.

A great way to make sure that your resume has what it takes to succeed is to make sure that each of your resume sentences begin with appropriate resume action words or keywords. These words are not difficult to find online at resume help websites or from resume reference books.

They include "action oriented" words such as promoted, facilitated, marketed, developed and managed.

The question I always have to ask myself is why do so many people opt to leave them off of their resume? I believe the answer might be that most job searchers just simply don't take the time to look closely at their resume to see if there are solid resume keywords starting their sentences.

In reviewing numerous resumes I've found that if many of them had added some powerful resume keywords, their resumes could have totally been transformed.

Here's an example of a resume sentence recently reviewed:

- Responsible for taking incoming customer calls.

Not much "wow factor" in that sentence. When I talked with my client and asked her to describe what she actually did, I soon realized that she handled a lot more than just saying hello on the phone. The next sentence out of her mouth was. "I actually had to develop a rapport with our customers and then distribute each call to the right department to make sure that each customer got the help they needed."

Unknowingly, she had just mentioned two great resume keywords in "developed" and "distributed" which certainly do a much better job of creating a strong impression with a resume reader who may be her next employer.

So let's take a look at what would happen if we added a resume keyword to her original sentence and included some of the things she said she actually did.

- Developed positive customer rapport handling incoming calls and ensured proper follow-through by distributing calls to the appropriate department.

Sure does create a much stronger impression that she is a person of action. Employers want their new employees to be able to hit the ground running and make an immediate impact for their bottom line in a short period of time.

Remember, your resume needs to create a sense of urgency when it is being read so that it moves the resume reader to put it at the top of the pile to schedule an interview.

Using resume keywords is just one of the great ways to transform your resume.

So take the time to review your resume and see if there are some sentences that might need a resume keyword and really make your skills stand out!

Here's to success in your job search.

- Scott

Scott has been writing resumes and cover letters for the past 20 years and has now created a free resume help website. If you would like to know more about how to create a great resume, visit his site at http://www.my-easy-resume.com.