You may have heard that it is essential to use keywords in your resume but not know why. Have you ever wondered how potential employers sift through the hundred and possibly thousands of resumes that they get and come up with those they want to interview? What sets one person apart from the next? In a nut shell, it’s the keywords.
Many companies today now rely on keywords to help them determine who should get the interview and who should be skipped over. This is done thanks in large part to the every expanding technological world in which we live. Many employers will now take the resumes that are handed in for a certain position and use a special type of keyword recognition software that can sort the numerous amounts of resumes in a matter of minutes and give the potential employer a list of qualified candidates in accordance with the keywords they input into the program. In addition, these same employers will often use the same software to search resumes on different third party sites such as Monster.com and HotJobs.com. The point is that if you are applying to one of these companies and you are not using keywords in your resume then your chances of getting an interview are nil.
Now you will never know which companies employ this tactic, though some estimates have the number of large companies doing this at about 80 percent, and you will also never know the exact keywords they are looking for, but usually the keywords are nouns. With the advent of the internet now you can do some searching for keyword ideas related to your job sector and come up with some ideas relatively easily. So now how do you use them?
A lot of people will tell you to use the keywords liberally in the first 100 words or so in the resume as this are likely where the databases search, but that theory is quickly giving way to new thoughts and procedures. Now experts are suggesting that you not only use your keywords on a heavy basis towards the beginning, you need to also lightly sprinkle them throughout the entire resume. This will accomplish two things. The first is that the resume will not look compacted towards the top and the second is that it will read in a more fluid fashion if the keywords are spread out properly. While this may not be important if a computer program is searching the resume, your resume may actually fall into the hands of a real person at some point and you want it to read naturally. If your resume reads like a plugged up copy of several words, you may get it looked at, but you won’t get that phone call about the interview.
Using keywords are essential when writing your resume because they can quickly set you apart from the rest of the crowd. Just remember that using keywords in your resume and not committing ‘keyword overkill’ is a delicate balance that needs to be met in order to give yourself the best possible shot at landing the job of your dreams.
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