Quick Tip: Resume Writing Keywords

If you just got laid off from Hewlett-Packard, Lehman, one of the other Wall Street companies laying off people this week, you are probably working on your resume right now. One of the questions I frequently get asked is how to make a resume work best for machine filtering and online searches. Part of the answer is to focus on keywords.

Key words are words or short phrases that summarize you, your expertise, experience, or skill set. These are the phrases that filtering software will use to decide whether you match a job listing, and they are what recruiters will search to find your resume in a job board.
Once you have written your resume, go back and write a keyword (one word or short phrase) that best describes each job on your resume. Then go back and do the same next to each key experience, each key skill, and each accomplishment.

I then like to do a little research. My favorite tool is Indeed.com’s Job trend tool (http://www.indeed.com/jobtrends) . This will tell you how often each term is searched, across all of the job boards they work with. The more often a term in your resume is searched, the more often your resume will appear in a search. If you are unsure of the best term to use to describe a part of your resume, brainstorm several terms and check them on Indeed’s jobtrends. Use the one that will generate the most searches. If you have room, you can also use several to vary the text for readers, and to pull in wider traffic.

As with most things on the web, experiment a little with your resume. Post one version for a few days or a week, then make some changes and see if the results are any better. Keep working until you’ve found your optimal online resume.