Finding Jobs Online: 7 Steps for Priming Your Resume

If you're currently unemployed, chances are you've been applying for jobs online.

While the Internet is one of the greatest resources you can use to find employment, there are things you can do to make your resume and yourself stand out. It's especially important to pay attention to your resume, as many companies use applicant tracking systems to screen a candidate's resume before it even has the chance to be seen by a real person.

Mark Lyden, a veteran college recruiter at Boeing, recently told CNNMoney that the key to being noticed by an employer online is "reverse engineering" your resume. That can be done through the following seven steps:

1. Pinpoint the jobs you might want. Before you do anything else, go to the Web sites of the companies you have targeted and get the job descriptions of specific openings that interest you.

2. Take your cue from the job descriptions. Next, "mark the precise words and phrases that describe the skills and knowledge someone has decided are necessary for each job."

3. Rewrite your resume for each opening. Use the keywords and phrases you highlighted when describing any relevant experience you have. Be precise. Let's say a job description reads "Must have experience with finite element analysis," an engineering specialty often abbreviated as FEA. If your resume says "Experience in FEA," you could be counted out.

Tailor each resume you submit to match those exact key phrases from the job description. If you have no training or experience in a given area of the job description, concentrate on the ones where you do have some knowledge.

4. Create a heading on each resume that says "Interest Areas." Take all the keywords and phrases you highlighted from the job description and list them under this heading, even if they've already been mentioned in your resume's "Experience" or "Education" sections.

5. Rewrite your profile on each Web site. When you register on employers' Web sites, make sure your online profile includes those same keywords and phrases, especially if the company asks for your "interest areas."

6. Next, apply for the jobs that interest you. If you've already applied for specific jobs, follow the five steps above and reapply.

7. Keep customizing your resume and updating your online profiles. As you apply for more jobs, repeat the process above for each one.

Comment by Phil Haynes on September 17, 2009 at 3:29pm: Besides confounding all in-house recruiters by having a bunch of tailored resumes and frustrating job seekers by creating a time consuming process with no results, how is this helping people get jobs?
This is the worst advice anyone can give to a job seeker and is a prime example of why someone needs to point out that we must change the paradigm. Has anyone asked job seekers how this works for them? Here's the scenario:
1. see job description
2. build resume to more closely match the job description
3. fool recruiter by coming up in a search even though you may have very few of the necessary attributes - but boy howdy did you get noticed!!
4. attend an interview where you are asked questions you can't answer, look the fool and slink out to the nearest bar.
5. beccome despondent and abhorr the job search process. Blame the corporations.

Or let me say it another way;
1. I'm lonley
2. I need a date
3. I ask beautiful women what they want in a man
4. I build on-line profiles to reflect these desires even though I'm 35, live with my parents and deliver pizzas for a living
5. I go on dates, get dumped, stood up and laughed at
6. I'm lonley

Pimping the system will NEVER be the answer to a successful job search. Why put this drivel into the marketplace?

Comment by Phil Haynes on September 17, 2009 at 3:29pm: I know, the answer will be "I never said to lie". But really, how much customization can you do to what you've done and what you want to do?

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