Selling a product used to be fairly straightforward, a 35 year veteran of the sales field told me recently. You presented your product to customers, they bought it or not depending on their needs at the time. Selling today is far more "strategic", he said. Products have to be "well positioned" to obviously address the customer's needs.

He could have been talking about résumés. Once, they were fact sheets simply listing past jobs and education. Now, they are strategic marketing documents. At its best, your résumé positions you as someone able to meet the employer's needs.

Before you can even begin to write a strategic résumé, you need a clear sense of what those needs are. Conduct a needs assessment to familiarize yourself. Carefully read job ads and job descriptions. Talk to employers; talk to people working at your level. (If you find research of this kind difficult, try volunteering in your field, gathering information as you go.)

Create several lists. Ultimately, you'll pick and choose information from these to customize your résumés to your marketplace.

Under Work History include jobs and contracts, work both paid and unpaid. Note dates, employer's name, duties and responsibilities. Under Education, itemize on-the-job and industry sponsored training, as well as formal training.

Assess and inventory your inner self. You can't sell something you don't understand. Note your skills, abilities and strengths. Résumé and career planning books can help with this. If you want to speak with a career counselor, look for resources in your social service and educational community. The objective here is to create and maintain a personal profile.

Inventory your accomplishments. An accomplishment is something you did and enjoyed doing that benefited you or others in some way. One of the best books around to help you assess yours' is Richard Bolles', What Color Is Your Parachute (10 Speed Press).

There is no single way to write a résumé. Still, there are certain expectations. Preferred length: Two pages (some say only one.) Preferred style: Chronological (preferred by employers, that is; not always your best approach.) Preferred Tone: Accomplishment/ performance based (a couple of accomplishments noted under each job will give employers a sense of your performance). Opening gambit: a summarizing statement that targets the needs of your potential employers. Closing note: References available on request.

A résumé, on it's own, is seldom enough to land the job. What it can do, however, is open doors. Here are some of the doors you'll want to open and the best approach for each one.

Employment ads. Think of the ad itself as a mini-job description. Underline each adjective and descriptive phrase. Write these out on a clean sheet of paper. Revise your résumé to use these terms. Be sure your opening summary addresses these needs and that your accomplishments relate to them, as well. Write a covering letter in the same targeted way.

Job interview. If you don't have an advertisement, ask for a job description. Review your ré sumé against it, as noted above. Offer the interviewer a résumé targeted to the position and needs of the employer and your discussion will naturally flow to your ability to meet those needs.

Recruiters. If writing a recruiter about a specific job, heed the advice offered above. If you're sending a résumé on spec., detail your background in a straightforward, chronological format offering clear information about your work history and performance. Some recruiters store résumés in electronic databases, but more about that in a moment.

Prospecting. Some people say it's pointless to prospect for jobs by sending résumés to strangers. It's far better, they believe, to call personally, ask for a meeting, then follow up with a résumé. However, if you have strong writing skills and believe you can sell yourself on paper, by all means try the written approach. It tends to work best when each résumé sent is followed up by a phone call.

Electronic résumés. Résumés intended for storage in an electronic database need to be customized further. Use a simple typeface, no italics or underlining, leave lots of whitespace. Computers search database for specific words (up to 20 words) that have been programmed as criteria for the search. They're called "keywords" and as Jeffrey Allen writes in The Résumé Makeover (Wiley), they are nouns that "name your skills, talents, experience and abilities."

Add a Keywords section to the top or bottom of your résumé. Build this section by combing through your research to find all the relevant "nouns" that label you, your skills and background. Use industry specific terminology. Include industry abbreviations, note memberships in professional associations.

Creating customized, strategic résumés may seem like a lot of work. But you need a competitive edge today and this is one way to gain it. As you assess yourself and your marketplace, keep all your information in one place; computerize the process if you can. Rewrite, edit, target your résumé to the opportunity you're going after and you'll get the best mileage from it.