Keywords vital to job-search success
Dear Sam: Several of your columns have talked about the importance of using keywords. Can you explain how I can figure out what keywords I should incorporate into my resume? — Wesley
Dear Wesley: The first step in writing a resume is to determine your career target. Start perusing job postings, and identify the positions for which you fulfill the majority of qualifications. Once you have found a handful of positions of interest, I recommend performing a keyword mapping exercise to outline the content — aka “keywords” — most important to include in your resume.
To perform keyword mapping, I suggest the following steps:
Print a representative sampling of job postings (10 or so) you are interested in.
Read the postings, and write the desired qualifications, skills, etc. on the left side of a piece of paper.
Cross-reference the list with your qualifications, transferring the items you possess to the right side of the piece of paper and crossing them off the list on the left side of the paper.
Move qualifications that you “sort of” have to the center of the paper.
This master list will then illustrate an overview of your qualifiers (on the right side of the page), disqualifiers (on the left side of the page) and potential disqualifiers (in the middle of the page).
These keywords and phrases then need to be incorporated into your resume. Be very careful how you handle or address any items that remain on the left side of the page or that fall in the middle. This exercise will provide you with a road map of the language you need to speak to develop a targeted resume based on your areas of interest.
This exercise will also reveal whether your career targets are too diverse. If you find yourself writing furiously by the time you are mapping your sixth or seventh job posting, then perhaps you need to take a closer look at your job-search target to ensure that you are positioning yourself as qualified for specific roles instead of “everything.”
— Samantha Nolan is a certified professional resume writer and the owner of Ladybug Design, a full-service resumewriting firm. Email resume or job-search questions to dearsam@arkansasonline.com. To find out more about Nolan, visit www.ladybug-design.com.