Helping those looking for work!!!!!!!!! Part 2 The secret to having a resume that is searchable and Optimized!!!

Helping those looking for work!!!!!!!!! Part 2 The Job of finding a Job!!

So given the unemployment rate went up a week or so ago, I thought I would repost a 3 part series I did about a year ago on resumes, finding a job and more. So here we go.

Part 2

The secret to having a resume that is searchable and Optimized!!!

As you all know when you apply to a job, your resume goes into a huge database, were the recruiter then searches based on skills and buzz words. The problem is of course sometimes it is hard to know what words they will search on, and without these words in your resume someplace, you resume may not get pulled as being a fit for a position.

Well here are a few of the little secrets to help.

First look carefully at the job description, odds are the buzz words the recruiter will search on, will be listed in the job description someplace. Find them and ensure they are on your resume someplace and you will be fine.

Secondly and this is huge. Not only make sure your resume lists the words that you find based on the job description (JD) but ensure that it includes any other possible words. Due your research, use a thesaurus; use the internet to find out what words are being used to describe what you do. Now off course you cannot just put all these words on your resume, it will be very hard to find out how to do that, without being obvious, and making your resume to long and this leads to the third secret.

Thirdly, once you have your list of buzz/search terms; type them on your resume, separating each with a comma. Type them at the top or at the bottom it does not matter. Now change the font to 1, and change the color to white. This will make all those word invisible to the human eye, but guess what the ATS(applicant tracking system), HRIS (Human Resources, information System), or whatever database they are using, will still be able to read them, and your resume will still be marked as having those buzz/search terms, and you will be looked at for the position. Search on this post for the word Bio, you will see it show up twice, bio but your eyes will only see one.

Remember once your resume is selected as having the right buzz words, the recruiter or whomever will read the resume to see what you have done and how it fits JD, and in the end that is the idea,

So apparently there are some who think a candidate will take the time to do what I outlined above for a job they are not qualified for. Hence some of your comments. First if any candidate would take the time to do as I said and not even remotely be qualified for the job the applied for it will not matter as they will come up any way. You can guarantee someplace were the human eye can see will be at least 1 if not several of the buzz words in the JD ensuring that there profile will have gotten pulled up. IN stead of thinking about the few that will come up that will not be qualified think about the many more that will come up now that are qualified. I mean most recr4uiters alw2ays complain candidates do not read the JD, they do not ensure their resumes show what they can do as it relates to the JD, that is all we are talking about here. IF any of you would have read my post some time ago on writing a resume you would know that I am referring to optimizing a resume for a positions JD that matches to what you can do. But I guess I should have expected some to think ill of people first instead of good.

Comment by Valentino Martinez on September 10, 2011 at 1:11am: Dean,

The secrets you're sharing here are classified as SECRET. Are you authorized to place them in the public domain? You're like the magician who exposed the "magic" behind the magic.

Don't you realize when such "secrets" get out, worlds collide? The ATS’s screening capability will be compromised; and think of the poor in-house recruiters when they get an avalanche of "qualified" job applicants that are actually not so qualified? They will be forced to read each and every resume and try to decipher the good from the not so good, and document an assessment on each one. Have you no sensitivity to their workload?

While I am all up in the Kool-Aid for helping those looking for work find work...you're tampering with the essence of crowd control and the gatekeepers oath to protect the castle.

Comment by Louis Bina on September 11, 2011 at 9:21pm: This is pretty much what I was referring to when I posted my most recent article. Search optimized resumes only make the recruiters do more work than is necessary. These types of tips falsely represent the candidate, or at least over-exaggerate their abilities. Wouldn't you prefer those looking for work to be able to keep the job because they're an excellent match? All this will do is get them to the front of the line but not through the door.

Comment by Dean Da Costa on September 12, 2011 at 12:56am: First off this trick does not falsely represent anything, what is does is give the candidates a better chance of having their resume actually looked at, and the recruiter a better chance of getting a good candidate they might otherwise not see. There are way to many database recruiters out there. Recruiters who if looking for a "Visual Basic" developer will only search for "Visual Basic:, not realizing that by doing that they miss anyone who uses "VB" instead, and since most ATS sytems rank candidates by the number of times the search word appears in their resume, even if you say "Visual Basic" once and then VB the rest you are at the bottom of the list. Even though you may be the most qualified.

Wouldn't you prefer to hire a candidate that is an excellent match and was not overlooked just beacuse they did not use the extact search term in thier resume you looked for? Of course. IT takes 10 or less seconds to determine if someone looks good by their resume, 10 or less, not a big deal if it helps you to find candaidets you otherwise would have overlooked.

I will give a great example, I know someone who was a great fit for a particualer job, but never got called. I showed them this trick, they applied with a new resume, they got a call, the got hired, they have been on thejob for 3 years and going. The reason they were never called initially, the recruiter was using only a specific set of search terms, not realizing there are other words that should be searched on that will also gain good candidates. They were a fairly new database recruiter, who did not undertsand the concept of research before you start a search, so you understand what each search term means and what other words might be used besides the set ones you already have.

So does this trick falsely represent a candidate, no not at all, the resume will stillbe either read or scnned and if they cannot do the job it will be obvious in a few seconds, all this does it get the candidate noticed. Nothing false about that. If you had read the first part of this series were I went into specifics about writing a resume adn ensuring everythign that is on it is accurate and true you would know there is no falsley invovled, only optimizing you resume, like recrutiers optimize a job description, to ensure the candiadets resume gets looked at, not falsely anything.

Comment by Fela Groswirt on September 12, 2011 at 12:28pm: Very useful!! where can I find the other 2 parts? I am preparing a short curse for unemployed people in Tijuana, Mexico where there is a lot of job offers, a lot of prepared persons but sadly they are not prepared to search for a job, so I am going to teach them how to look for job offers, how to elaborate a good resume and finally how to behave on an interview. Thanks for sharing part 2, can't wait to see the rest.

Comment by Dean Da Costa on September 12, 2011 at 1:01pm: Part one had already been posted in this blog before part 2. Part 3 will be this week. There is also a few posts on interviewing on this blog.

Comment by Bobby Davis on September 30, 2011 at 11:21am: Dean,

My philosophy in recruiting is to help as many candidates as I can along with finding companies the highest quality candidate available. 9 out of 10 resumes need to be revamped, reformated, and in many ways rewritten to highlight candidate's history, skills and achievements so that hiring managers and/or HR will recognize a solid match. I coach my candidates on resume writing and this very subject. By adding "keywords", and only if they have the experience to back it up, the odds of someone finding them are much greater. So many times I find a candidate's resume who seems to have the desired skills but may be missing the one I'm looking for because they thought the skill was "understood". As an IT recruiter working with evolving technology, it's important that candidates indicate their area of expertise so they are quickly found. Great suggestions! Keep up the great ideas!