Keyword optimization: “What’s that?” Keyword optimization is the skill and possibly the art of choosing the correct keywords to draw in the people you want to read your website or in this case your resume.

Keyword optimize isn’t just for websites and it is one of the most important things related to what is called search engine optimization. That means uses the right keywords so that you can be found in places like Google. Sadly, it's one of the things people tend to spend no or too little time on.

Keywords are also called Tags. Job seekers who use websites such as Monster, CareerBuilder and Craig’s List can optimize their online resume so that their resume jumps t the top of a search for recruiters and personnel managers.

According to a writer named Pinny Cohen and the article ‘Are You Keyword Optimizing Your Resume’ job recruiters use keywords to search for job applicants using keywords.

Here is a snippet from Pinny’s ‘Are You Keyword Optimizing Your Resume’ article.

Marc Cenedella, of TheLadders.com, a recruiting site that specializes in jobs paying $100,000 or more, developed a list of the 100 most-searched for terms by recruiters on the site.

The top 10 types of keywords recruiters search for on job sites:

1. Sales
   
2. Controller
   
3. CPA
   
4. Sap
   
5. Project Manager
   
6. CFO
   
7. Tax
   
8. Director
   
9. Recruiter
   
10. Human Resources

CareerPerfect advises that you add a keyword summary (Qualification Summary) at the beginning of a resume even if you’ve used keywords throughout the resume.

Pat Kendall of Advanced Resume Concepts provided two examples of keyword non-use and keyword use summaries:

Not using keywords

Achievement-oriented with 15 years of successful experience and proven ability to meet objectives, communicate with clients, and quickly excel in new industries.

Using keywords

Achievement-oriented sales professional with 15 years of success in international trade and global marketing. Skilled in developing marketing programs, coordinating new product introductions and providing customer support. Proven track record in cold calling, new business development and key account management.

The location of keywords within your resume is important. For example, if you use a keyword in the title of your resume, you will have a better chance of ranking higher than if it were only in the body of your resume / profile.

Register a Personal Domain Name.

A great way to advertise your skills and experience is to do a personal resume web page. I personally believe that everyone should have his or her own web page even if you don’t use it for five years. Someday you may to use it and you’ll be glad you registered it way back when. A personal web page is inexpensive to register and can give you much better search engine positioning than a free site with complicated URLs or thousand of other resumes.

Building a website can be either simple and inexpensive or complicated and splashy. While a more completed website can get a tad expensive it is often worth the initial investment to create an eye and search engine friendly website that will grab attention. TIP: Don't have a dark background with light-colored letters! Your resume may be printed by someone, and light letters on a dark background is a disastrous combination for most printers.

Gaming The HR Scanning Process

Gaming the HR scanning process is a rarely used term when job applicants want to get their resume into the hands of a human HR person by advancing the scanning process. A lot of Personnel departments use scanning software to scan a received resume and forward only the ones with the minimum amount of accepted keywords used in the resume. Applicants who genuinely fit the requirements of the advertised position should be the only ones to game the scanning process. With that said…

Gamming the HR scanning process is to tailor your resume to the job description to which you're responding. Use the same words, find the sentence strings and phrases that seem to be important and reiterate them in your resume.

For example

Advertised position: Must have knowledge of Microsoft Office 2007 and demonstrate software experience.

Your gamming the scanning process should be: I am experienced in Microsoft Office 2007 software.

The keyword phrase here is Microsoft Office 2007

Create A Keyword Happy Resume:

Consider the keywords to be used in job titles, skills, and education that would be most important to someone looking for the type of position you are seeking.

Take a highlighter to a printed version of your resume. Highlight all of the potential keywords that you find and look them up in a online keyword popularity website.

Look up the most popular keywords for the type of position you are seeking.

Use common industry acronyms that are used for the type of position you are seeking.

How a resume looks and reads is still very important - make sure your keywords fit in comfortably.

Review your resume and consider where you can add keywords such as Job Responsibilities, Accomplishments and Qualifications. Use different forms of keywords in different sections for maximum exposure.

Keywords are typically nouns but may also include verbs that reflect skills and experience. Keywords on a lot of forms are also called Tags. While keyword nouns play the leading role in being selected by technology such as search engines don’t forget that you still want to include action verbs for human readers.

References

• Keyword Optimize Your Resume
  
• Optimize Your Resume With Keywords
  
• 7 Secrets to Search-Optimize - Your Resume Web Page
• Create a "Buzz by using keywords