This morning, I spoke with Annemarie Cross & Keith Keller on their weekly radio show, discussing how job seekers can give their resume the "FLICK" (Format, Layout, Image, Consistency & Keywords).

Original blog post here http://www.recruitmentdirectory.com.au/Blog/give-your-resume-the-fl...

Most people would be familiar with the KISS principle and job seekers should apply this when developing a resume. Let me explain how you can give your resume the FLICK.


FORMAT

It is important for job seekers to save their resume as either a Word ".doc" or ".pdf" format. Unfortunately many recruiters and employers have not upgraded to the latest MS Word version using the ".docx" format. When sending or uploading your resume ".doc" is preferred. Your resume may be parsed and stripped to be inserted into a database.


LAYOUT

Develop a easy to read, and well laid out resume. Stick to plain fonts. Try not to include complex tables and images. Recruiters/Employers are going to evaluate you on your skills, experience and qualifications. How are they going to find this information if your resume is unreadable?


IMAGE

Is this resume a reflection of your actual presentation? If a potential employer was to meet with you, would your demeanor match your resume style? Also image can relate to your "online image" on search engines, social networking sites, blogs, forum posts. Google yourself, and check what your online image says about you


CONSISTENCY

Be consistent with your resume. It's great to have a number of different versions of your resume. But when you update your resume on one site, make sure you update your resume on all the other job boards, recruiter/employer databases and resume databases to be consistent. There is nothing worse than finding two different resumes on a database - which one would you use?


KEYWORDS

Keywords, keywords keywords! Keywords play a critical part in how your resume may be found by recruiters and employers. Before a job is advertised, recruiters will often search a database of existing candidates.

Fill your resume with rich and meaningful keywords. You do not need to spam your resume with irrelevant keywords, but incorporate these into explaining your skills and experience. When conducting a keyword search on a resume, the number of times that keyword (or phrase) is found in a resume is called "keyword density". Try to incorporate your occupation or job title with your name to stand out from others ie. "John Smith, Tax Accountant CPA".