Too many books on resume writing are out-of-date. Although
well intentioned and filled with other good information,
most have not been updated for the job search realities of
today.

Your resume will be seen by many eyes, including
electronic. The computer will “score” it by the number of
keywords (also known as “buzzwords”) the employer will find
most relevant. If you don’t account for this, your resume
will stay locked in some database while you sit waiting by
the phone for the call that never comes.

Put in a “Keyword Competencies” section.

One solution for the electronic gatekeeper is to include a
special section called a Keyword Competencies section. You
want to focus on the words most likely to be used by either
a Human Resources staffing employee or a recruiter.  They
search resumes by keywords. The greater number of relevant
keywords you can include, the higher relevancy score your
resume will be given.

You should include a separate section that lists all the
relevant keywords pertaining to your career and skills.
This section should best be listed at the beginning of your
resume to introduce the skill sets you possess early on
from an interviewing standpoint. Include no more than 75
keywords.

For example, if you were a Java Programmer, your Keyword
Competencies section might look something like this:

“Java, Visual C++, perl, ticl, application development,
visual basic, Windows NT/XP, programming, GUI, html,
project management, layer 2, BSEE, etc”.

The idea here is to put in as many relevant, searchable
keywords that describe your potential job title and skills.
Be sure to include your technical skills, management or
organizational skills, relevant software and/or mechanical
abilities and expertise. Include anything that might be
important to the particular job.

Added Tip: If you can locate a description of an actual job
for which you are applying, copy in all the applicable
buzzwords listed under required and desired skills. This
includes education levels (if they require a BS in
Electrical Engineering, then include “BSEE” as well).

If you spend some time on this, you should easily come up
with a list of from 40 to 80 relevant searchable keywords
to include here.

Summary There are several important elements to consider
when building your resume, but if your document is not
getting exposure then you’ve wasted your time.  By simply
adding relevant keywords you increase your resume’s odds of
making it to the “possibles” stack and your receiving a
phone call from a potential employer.

—————————————————-
Joe Turner, the “Job Search Guy”, makes it easy to quickly
land that next job.  To claim your free 6-part Recruiter
Secrets Minicourse, visit
http://www.jobchangesecrets.com/Free_Job_Search_Tips.html

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 24th, 2006 at 9:05 pm and is filed under Business, Business Thinking, Job Interviewing, Resume. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.