Career Advice
Former recruitment agency experts answer
employment questions, candidly suggesting how to
negotiate your salary, find a really good job,
handle phone interviews, and more. Sage advice like this is
priceless.
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Resume Key Words
Many larger companies use resume scanning
software that include a keyword identifying and
sorting system which ranks resumes based on the
number of "keywords" contained in the
resume. Having the right keywords in your resume
will not guarantee you a job but not having them
in the resume almost assuredly guarantees that
you won't get an interview.
As an additional benefit, identifying the key
skills and experience that will be needed for
your next job is an essential part of your career
development plan. Savvy professionals will
undertake this keyword exercise in order to
identify both current weaknesses in their
experience and knowledge as well as future skills
and experience that will be needed in order to
get promoted!
Steps in identifying keywords, essential
skills and experience. How do you identify the
"correct" keywords to use?
Start with the job description for your targeted
position. In addition review the want ads for
other closely related jobs in order to identify
the key terms they are looking for.
Identify the key values of the company you are
targeting. These values can generally be found
somewhere on the firms website, or in the firm's
mission statement, or annual report.
Next look for any key 'competencies' that the
firm lists on its website.
Then go through the job description and want ads
for the specific job you are targeting.
Repeat the step above for the job description and
the want ads of the target firm's competitors.
Capture all the key words they list since many
firms try to emulate the practices of their best
competitors.
Also go through the job descriptions and the want
ads of any related jobs in the same firm to see
if there are words that are continually used by
the firm. If the company's ads keep repeating
certain things then it is likely because this is
an important factor for them them.
Look at the job description for the job that is
"one level above" the job you are
targeting at that firm. Add key words from the
"higher" level job ad if you expect to
get a higher than average pay rate (or if you
wish to be promoted soon).
In addition to reviewing job descriptions reading
about the latest trends in business and
technology is also essential. Scan the the better
magazines and journals for your profession for
keywords.
Sorting and ranking keywords:
Try to use each words at least three times in
your resume and cover letter.
The most important key words should appear early
in each section of each job description on your
resume (generally in the first line or two).
Conclusion:
Although it is possible to get an interview
without 'loading' your resume with keywords,
including them will definitely improve your
chances.
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