How to Write a Resume for the Job Boards

Write A Resume for Both Hiring Managers and Search Engines

Upon approaching the formulation of their sales resume, many job seekers write the document only considering the needs of 1/2 of their targeted audience.

The goal of writing your resume geared towards both the human editor and the job search engines (Monster, Hotjobs, the Ladders, etc.) is to significantly increase your career reach and networking with less administrative work.

You could have the best resume, but if only a fraction of the potential viewers see it, the CV is going to prove ineffective resulting in a significant cut of potential jobs you have to choose from.

5 Reasons Why Do You Need to Write the Resume Geared Towards the Job Search Engines

1) Taking time to apply comes with a high opportunity cost and low hit rate.

2) In this economy, you want to have incoming leads as well as outgoing.

3) You can’t be on the job boards at all times; let your resume do some of the lifting.

4) The conversion rate should be increased when the hiring manager looks for you rather than the other way around.

5) Recruiters love job boards and hold them with as much weight, if not more than the flood of incoming resumes.

How Do You Write the Resume for the Job Search Engines? 4 Tips:

a) Keywords are increasingly more important as well as their location within the resume. You don’t want to overdo it, but you should have industry and job related keywords towards the top of the resume as well as scattered throughout…not just one or the other.

b) Long sentences with intangible words such as “entrepreneurial” mean nothing to the search engines. Avoid ambiguous speech.

c) Keep the important information on top. Where you went to college does not hold weight (significant weight at least with the job search engines); this could mean putting your education on the bottom of the resume.

d) Using bold and italics to stress key points…the right key points. The fact that you are “effective” does not mean much to the robots searching your resume.

The fact that you are “effective at cold-calling” or “effective at implementing social media campaigns” does.
In closing, the job search engines are the first line of defense that you, the resume writer must receive approval from…make sure you get that blessing.