Online Resume Database
There is absolutely no mystery about how these databases harvest results. It is all about keywords. Recruiters perform thousands of keyword searches on popular resume databases every day. Do you want your resume to be among the top ranking? We have already learned that human labor costs are high and before your resume reaches a real person it is filtered by a computer. (see my previous Keyword Game post)
Step 1: Search
First, you need to define the relevant keywords for your chosen job. Career changers, be careful not to use the keywords to describe your previous work experience. Rather, employ selected keywords to illustrate your aspired position.
You are clueless and don’t know the right keywords? Find job ads (in your field) and read them carefully. Are there some things (aspects of a job) that keep appearing in them. Most of the time these ads look like identical twins. When I read the ads, I hear music, and text is of course, the lyrics. You can think of the keywords like a refrain. All the ads sing the similar songs, it is the fashion. I guess.
Step 2 : VIP treatment
Layer your resume with keywords like a cake (can you tell I am hungry?). Start aggressively, concentrate on keywords and then repeat regularly throughout your resume. How do you achieve this effective use of keywords in your resume?
Avoid: using keywords summary. Computer is just the first reader. It is much harder to impress a human reader than to dazzle the PC with monotonous use of keywords.
Instead: give a summary of your qualifications or write your professional profile and elegantly incorporate your key players in the front row.
Word Count
Only resumes that have the required keywords are found. Resumes that have more of the desired keywords rank higher, and will be selected first. Other factors that can affect search rankings include ratio keywords/total word count, proximity to other keywords and how close to the top of the page keyword hits occur.
