It’s easier said than done to create a great resume when you’re under pressure to get it done. If you’ve had a long career and you’ve worked your way up over many years, this is definitely the case, as it’s difficult to provide a sense of focus to your resume.

But, of course, ultimately there’s no excuse for having a subpar executive resume. If you’re stuck, take a look at a few of these tips to help improve your executive resume writing skills.

Define a Clear Target

One of the first things you want to do when organizing your executive resume is to define a clear target. You should know the mission of the company you’re applying with, as well as what would be expected of you in the position you want. Otherwise, you can’t expect to speak effectively about why you’re the ideal candidate.

Make Sure to Brand Yourself

At this point, you should be known for contributing something to your field. It doesn’t matter what field you work in, it simply matters that your name is directly associated with your positive accomplishments and expert abilities. Your executive resume should focus a bit on branding yourself, and showing why you’re a different and better choice than the other applicants. Make special note of your unique, valuable attributes, characteristics that make you and only you the perfect leader for the job.

Include a Success Story or Two

Again, at your level, you should be known for having accomplished a lot. You want your resume to show all of your successes. As you know, many successes present themselves with challenges, so showing how these challenges were dealt with can be very beneficial.

Leave Room for White Space

When writing an executive resume, it’s often difficult to find a balance between including the right amount of information and leaving enough white space so that BlackBerry email cruisers won’t be overwhelmed with information. To give your resume a sense of balance for these devices, use short, topically relevant statements with a lot of value rather than drawn out sentences. Employers will appreciate an approach that’s easy to read, yet still filled with important information.

Edit and Re-edit

There is absolutely no excuse for having misspelled words or grammatical errors in your resume at the executive level. If you’re not the best speller or grammar buff, you most definitely should have everyone you can think of edit your resume to avoid the embarrassment of being overlooked for something so elementary.

Avoid Too Many Pages

You may have a lot of information you’d like to include in your resume due to your extensive experience; however, as you know, managers are busy people with little time to read pages of accomplishments. Don’t write five pages of extensive detail; instead, cut your resume down to a few pages with essential branding and information that markets your abilities and successes as a strong investment.

Hopefully these tips (and your short breather) have helped to give you some focus as you write your executive resume. Now it’s time to write the best resume you’ve ever laid eyes on.