One for all you Procurement and Supply Chain people out there!

Here's my analogy for the day - Job Seeking and RFPs. 

If you've ever participated in an RFP process; either on the Client side, or the Vendor side.... you will get what I'm talking about here.

You recieve a job description from Company X...

Think of a job description as an RFP, that a company has put out there, hoping for vendors to respond with relevant information for their review.  They have a need, they have detailed the way that they want that pain fixed, and have asked for someone to show them skills that will satisfy that need.  They didn't just write down random bullet points; these are the functions that this role is responsible for, and skills which the company has had trouble finding someone to do.  Hence why they're looking for a new employee!

You send a resume...

If you were a vendor, responding to an RFP, you would ensure that you tailored your information to the requests specified by the company, perhaps accompanying that information with some additional benefits you can provide as a service / product offering.  Your resume is a dynamic document, which you can change, depending on the type of job you're going for. 

Most of us have more experience than we could ever capture on a 2-3 page resume; so what do you elect to put on this magical document which is meant to represent YOU?   Try to satisfy the points requested in the job description first, and then augment your resume with some additional skill sets you bring to the table, which are relevant to the company / department / function at hand. 

Company X recieves your resume and reviews it in comparison with their job description...

If you were in charge of reviewing a number of RFP responses - you would most likely only review the ones which answered the questions / gave you information which you had requested.  Otherwise, one could feel that the vendor didn't take your RFP seriously, or wasn't able to perform the function / service you had outlined as your need. 

As a candidate, please think about this... Recruiters have got a limited amount of time to go through resumes recieved via job postings.  They will look for ones which relate to the job posting, through titles, key words, and relevant examples outlined in the resume.  If you don't enhance your resume, and tweak the experience you have down on paper to suit the roles at hand, you are really leaving something on the table, and risking being seen as a serious candidate in consideration for the role you want.