Results tagged “Internet” from Quintessential Resumes and Cover Letters Tips Blog

This posting is a guest entry from the Career Doctor, Randall S. Hansen, PhD:

Cathy writes:

For the first time in 23 years, I am conducting a job search that includes the Internet. I understand the importance of having a resume in text format to submit where requested.

I am also hearing that most recruiters, employers, etc. prefer resumes now be submitted electronically. Is this true?  Maybe it’s the old-fashioned marketer in me, but my tendency is to search the web for jobs and then send my resume the traditional way by mail so I can differentiate by different fonts, paper style, appearance-related factors. Could this be working against me?  

If so, even when I am asked to attach my resume as a Word document, I fear that various PCs will alter formats, fonts and spacing — so it’s back to the plain Jane text, or is it?  

  The Career Doctor responds:

While I totally agree with you about the power of print resumes, I have to sadly state that their influence in job-hunting is definitely on the decline. Job-seekers will still need these documents for job fairs, interviews, and a direct-mail campaign, but because the Internet has so dramatically changed how we search and apply for jobs, you know need to focus on having a text resume.

Employers want text resumes — especially electronic versions (submitted online or via email) — because they can easily deposit every resume into a massive database and then use keywords to search and find the resumes that most match their needs.

Text resumes are almost completely void of any style — and when printed, they look pretty ugly.

So, not only are resume formats changing, but so is the content. As you work on your electronic resume, you must be focused on keyword and keyword phrases for your occupation and industry. Where we often avoided industry jargon in the past, now we embrace it. Of course, accomplishments are still extremely important, but you must now also try to phrase them the way you think a hiring manager might conduct a resume database search.

One final thought, though. I always recommend — when possible — to follow-up an emailed resume with a formatted resume sent through the mail. I think job-seekers who use this combination approach have an edge over those who do not.

Read more about electronic resumes in this article on Quintessential Careers: The Top 10 Things You Need to Know about E-Resumes and Posting Your Resume Online. And for a quick review of resume-writing, you might want to review this article: Avoid These 10 Resume Mistakes.

Need help with your resume, cover letter, or other career-marketing document? Order today from Quintessential Resumes and Cover Letters, powered by About Jobs Resume Writing Service.

Inundated by resumes from job-seekers, employers have increasingly relied on digitizing resumes, placing those resumes in keyword-searchable databases, and using software to search those databases for specific keywords that relate to job vacancies. Most Fortune 1000 companies, in fact, and many smaller companies now use these technologies. In addition, many employers search the databases of third-party job-posting and resume-posting boards on the Internet. Based on figures from the early 2000s, it is safe to estimate that well over 80 percent of resumes are searched for job-specific keywords.

The bottom line is that if you apply for a job with a company that searches databases for keywords, and your resume doesn’t have the keywords the company seeks for the person who fills that job, you are pretty much dead in the water.

To some extent, job-seekers have no way of knowing what the words are that employers are looking for when they search resume databases. But job-seekers have information and a number of tools at their disposal that can help them make educated guesses as to which keywords the employer is looking for. See a detailed discussion of resume keywords and how to identify them in our article, Tapping the Power of Keywords to Enhance Your Resume’s Effectiveness and use our Keywords Worksheet to help identify keywords for use in your resume.

Need help with your resume, cover letter, or other career-marketing document? Order today from Quintessential Resumes and Cover Letters, powered by About Jobs Resume Writing Service.

Differentiate your resume from the crowd, writes Deborah Walker in her article for Quint Careers, Is Your Resume Lost in the Great Internet Void?.

Dozens of fast-food restaurants sell hamburgers and fries. How do you choose which one you want? Chances are, one of those restaurants has a differentiating edge, something that you like better than all the others. The job market is the same way; it’s flooded with choices, so you have to make your resume stand out from all the competition. The best way to differentiate your resume from others is with accomplishments. And those accomplishments really stand out when:

• They are measurable. Can you define how much you accomplished in dollars saved, contracts won, or percent changed? [Editor’s note: See our article, For Job-Hunting Success: Track/Leverage Your Accomplishments.]
• They support your transferable skills. Can your skills be used by this company, even if your job experience is in a different industry? What skills will transfer from one job to another? [Editor’s note: See our article, Transferable Job Skills — a Vital Job-Search Technique.]
• They connect to corporate bottom-line objectives. How can you help them save time, save money, increase their profit margin, improve sales, or increase revenue?

Need help with your resume, cover letter, or other career-marketing document? Order today from Quintessential Resumes and Cover Letters, powered by About Jobs Resume Writing Service.