What you don’t know about the recruiting processes used by employers seeking qualified applicants to find a perfect candidate for a job opening can leave you wondering why you weren’t contacted.  You have the skills, training, education, years of experience – so why isn’t the phone ringing?

It could be your resume.

Whoa – hold on!  The career counselor spent hours with you, composing the right words, ensuring it was succinct, and noting achievements for each employer. You studied dozens of resume writing guidebooks to get it right.  You even printed it on expensive paper.  It’s perfect…but is it?

You should own two forms of your resume. The first is the ‘pretty’ resume (paper hard copy) to distribute via networking, at job fairs, and snail-mailing to HR departments.  The second resume is an electronic version (soft copy) used to post on electronic, internet-based job boards.  This is the most important resume – with a detailed capabilities statement and a lengthy career history.

Technically savvy recruiters use sophisticated Automated Tracking Systems (ATS) to perform electronic queries for candidates – similar to searches on Internet search engines.  The programmed query generates a queue of resumes – based on the number of times a word is found in the resumes in the database. The higher the number of times a word is found, the higher the ‘valid match’ resumes position to the results.  If the job seeker knows the system, they can use the trick to their advantage.  A sample:  A recent college graduate mentioning ‘system administrator’ 20 times in a two-page resume, will list higher on the results than a twenty-year veteran with the same words listed only five times on a ten page resume. Remember – get key skill words repeated (logically) throughout the resume.

The tips below, for formatting, content, and posting methodology, should ensure your resume gets noticed quicker and more often on job boards by recruiters.

Version: Convert the resume to text file before uploading to databases. Text versions parse cleaner and are easier to read.  Convert tables, columns, and text boxes to simple lists. Unusual text and bullets will convert, but if the parsing engine is too simple, the content may convert to a ragged, hard-to-read format.

Contact Info / Email: Don’t put name, address, emails, phone or page numbers in the header or footer – it may be stripped during the upload / parsing into databases. Contact info is vital in the right location on the electronic resume – ATS’s have parsing engines to pull text from the resume to populate fields, which assists in queries.  Name, address, phone numbers, and emails should be near the top of the first page, for parsing efficiency. Leaving an email address off of a resume is a ‘kiss-of-death;’ a majority of recruiter first contact is via email due to under-manning and limited resources.  List personal email, not work email, so if phone numbers change, you can still be contacted. Turn ‘off’ your ISP’s spam filter.

Key Skill Words / Buzzwords / Length: Server space is cheap and when resumes are converted to text it results in a smaller document. Your ‘pretty’ resume might be two pages in hard copy, but may convert to an electronic text version of three and a half pages.  If it’s going to grow, then take advantage – expand your electronic resume to include specific experience, skill sets, education, and training. Some applicants add key search word strings at the bottom of their electronic resumes to increase query results; use industry buzzwords, and spell out acronyms at least once. The more the words are repeated in a resume, the higher ratio of recognition by query engines.

 Give them what they are asking:  Employers use pre-assessment questionnaires to pre-qualify candidates – here’s a chance to add more of those skill words.  Answer online profile and assessment questions about skills, knowledge, salary expectations, and work site preferences to eliminate time-wasting calls for entry-level jobs beneath one’s experience. Note all (minor/major) experience with software, hardware, certifications, training, and programming languages.  Employers are interested in technological, computer savvy candidates.

Clearance:  If you are seeking a job in the defense industry, note your current Department of Defense (DoD) Security Clearance with the periodic review date (if applicable) near the top of the resume.  Do not include Social Security numbers on resumes.  The only company rep needing this info before an employment offer would be the Facility Security Officer to confirm a status in JPASS.

Other Tips / Salary Considerations:  Carefully read the job description before applying – including the job’s required security clearances and salary range (if noted).  Apply to positions only if you have the majority of listed skill sets, education, and clearances, and are interested in the posted salary range (assume $10K – 15K higher than an advertised salary is the ceiling).

Error Messages:  If you work on a government site, firewall issues may generate computer access errors.  To avoid error messages on your home PC, pull down the browser toolbar, click on Tools, Options, and delete all temp files, history, and cookies before entering a recruiting website.

These tips, used wisely, will give your resume the extra advantage over other applicants for jobs.

Copyright, 2005, Dawn D. Boyer