Part of the mismatch is that too many job seekers are approaching their job searches with mid-1990's tools that won't get the job done in 2009. When a job candidate's resume and cover letter don't make a hiring manager's heart beat faster, the candidate misses out on an interview.

Old-school resumes read like laundry lists of miscellaneous talents, skills and abilities, from "excellent interpersonal skills" to "attention to detail." That laundry-list approach doesn't cut it in 2009. Employers don't care about these disembodied lists of competencies. They're more interested in knowing what a job-seeker actually got done on the job. They want to know what you made better in each of our past assignments.

The 'No Duh' Mistake

One of the most common resume problems is an over-reliance on job-description-type terminology. Here's an example: "As Call Center Manager, I was responsible for supervising Call Center representatives, managing hold times, purchasing equipment and handling difficult customer issues."

That kind of explanation isn't helpful — in fact, it's a waste of space. We can guess from the Call Center Manager title most of what a typical Call Center Manager does all day on the job.

The problem with "no duh" resume verbiage is that it only tells us what a given job requires. It doesn't say a word about the results a job-seeker achieved on the job.

As a job-seeker in a crowded market, you need to show that you know why your job was important to the organization, and then make it clear that you hit the most important goals in moving the business forward.

Rather than a litany of Call Center Manager tasks, you can say, "I led my team of eight representatives to the company's lowest-ever hold times while slicing the department's operating budget by 8 percent."

Anyone can rattle off a list of daily and weekly duties. Employers want to interview people who came, saw, and conquered.

What Can You Trumpet?

If you're stuck for accomplishments to describe in your resume, consider these: a time you improved a broken process, or came up with a better way to get the work done; a time you established a new communication vehicle (meeting, memo, podcast) for your group, or a new way to keep customers informed; a time you broke a record or reached an ambitious goal; a time you got people to work together, who hadn't worked together before.

Every working person has accomplishments to trumpet, but too often our resumes don't showcase them. If you're on a job hunt, I'd change that today!

Don't waste your precious resume real estate on lists of tasks and duties, or boring boilerplate like "Excellent interpersonal skills." Anyone can say that stuff. Tell us what's in your wake, instead!