What are keywords for a resume?
Today many resumes are passed electronically direct to companies or are searched through on large job hunting websites. These resumes are then searched through often by software programs rather than people so that only the most relevant are passed onto the recruiters for them to review and call to interview. This software is usually referred to as an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) and will use keywords specified by the recruiter to find the most relevant resumes. These keywords for a resume are the specific words and phrases that the recruiter would expect to see within an application that matches the job that they are looking to fill. Typically these will be:
- The actual job title that is to be filled such as “Production Manager”
- Specific qualifications that they are looking for such as “MBA”
- Specific skills they are looking for such as “Six Sigma”
- Software that they expect you to know such as “ERP”
- Specific experience that they are looking for such as “Coaching”
These resume keywords are weighted and scored by the recruiter so that they can then use the software to find those resumes that contain all of the right resume writing keywords in the right places. If your resume scores well enough then your resume will be selected by the software and passed for human review and possible interview.
How can you select resume keywords?
As you can imagine the keywords for resume writing that you need for one job are going to be very different to the next so you are going to have to do a little work to ensure that you select the right resume keywords for your targeted resume. The following are some simple methods that you can use to help you find what keywords you need for your resume writing:
- Look at several job postings to see exactly what they are asking for; by joining those all together into one document and then using a site such as TagCrowd you are able to see exactly what words and phrases are used the most within the job adverts and these are the keywords that you need to mirror within your resume.
- Look at different profiles on sites such as LinkedIn to see what keywords people in your targeted job title and industry are using. You can also review the profiles of people in the specific company that you are targeting.
- Ask: sometimes you will have access to recruiting professionals and you can ask them for advice as to what resume keywords you should use.
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