the labor market of today is not what it used to be. We are at a time and age where about 3 out of 4 employees are looking to change jobs. This puts them in a candidate pool alongside a lot of recent college graduates and recruits, creating an enormous supply of candidates for every open position.
So, how do you stay ahead of the pack?
The short answer is that you up your game. This means that to stay ahead of the competition and be considered first for a position. To do that, you need to adjust the strategy you use when crafting your resume. While there are surely a lot of tactics out there that can greatly benefit you, using keywords in a resume is a great start.
Resume keywords, for those who were wondering, are those specific terms or phrases you embed into your resume to highlight certain sections that will go a long way in getting you the job.
Rigg The System
In today’s job market, hiring managers and human resource professionals do not have the time to sift through the endless sea of applicants and resumes out there. Their problem is with the Applicant Tracking System (ATS) software. The ATS works by filtering results to include certain keywords as instructed by the hiring manager/ recruiter.
The resume keywords that you should use must be relevant to the kind of training and skills expected of those in your profession. Likewise, you would also want to go for those keywords that a hiring manager would likely use when looking for their dream candidate.
Simply, the benefits of using keywords in your resume can be summarized as
- Helping you get in front of hiring managers
- Making sure your resume is not lost in the pile when they are searching their ATS software
- Helping you showcase just what is special about you and;
- Showing the hiring manager that you are speaking their mind. After all, their keyword search brought you up.
Keyword Research
Now that you have discovered why keywords might be keeping you from that dream job, the task now is to find the perfect keywords to use in a resume such as yours. You can start by looking at various job postings in your field. Observe what skills different employers are looking for and then incorporate the most common ones.
Checking out the company website is not a bad idea too. The ‘About Us’ page is the cheat code to just what the company thinks of itself, and how they look at those they would employ. Take that knowledge and put it to good use.
It is easy for anyone to get resume keywords from the above steps. What is not so forthcoming is arranging them well in the resume so that they make sense.
Use as many resume keywords as you might find applicable, but don’t overdo it. Mix things up, make them appear as natural as possible, and make sure to only use those that you can effectively communicate.
Now is the best time to act. Your next job might just be a few resume keywords away.