Want to land a job?  COVID-19 took a great job market and turned it on its ear.  Now there are many millions of people around the world looking for a new job.  Thankfully, there are also companies out there hiring, so there is hope for those looking.  The expressed purpose of #ProjectHelpYouGrow is to help connect job seekers to recruiters and employers who have jobs to fill.

One of the issues I have seen around LinkedIn and via ProjectHelpYouGrow.com candidates is that many are still trying to use one resume for all the jobs they are applying too.  Why?  Some have paid a professional to write the resume, so they think they have a golden ticket.  Others are acting like the ATS was never invented and a one size shoe still fits all.  Some are confused and don’t understand what “editing your resume for each individual job listing” means.

The goal of this article is simple.  I want you to know what key words (as they relate to the resume/job listing) are and how to use them to your advantage.  I want to whip you into shape and take you from a struggling to find work soldier into a key word ninja.

The Job Market Has Changed!

First let’s get one thing straight, the job search today is much different than at any point in the history of the world.  Even the job search of 2019 is different than what we are facing now.  In 1995 I would go to Kinko’s, and order 250 or so resumes printed on linen paper, put them in my brief case and go and hand them out at companies I found in the newspaper.  I understand that it used to work.  1995 is long in the rearview. 

In today’s ultra-competitive world, if you should be using an ATS compliant resume that has a high key word match.  If you don’t, you’re more than likely not going to get the interview. If you’ve failed to adjust, you’ve likely failed to land a job.  In the rare exception for those who didn’t adjust and still landed a job, it was likely they had some great relationships that carried them across the ATS divide into the interview round.

The Resume’s Job is to Get You an Interview

What is the point of the resume?  It’s to get you to the interview round.  So how do you know if your resume is up to par?  Are you landing interviews at a good rate?  If so, you can stop reading this article and switch over to my article about “winning the interview” where I’ll teach you how the skills you need to win those interviews and end your job search.  For the rest of you, please keep reading this blog post, so you can master key word usage.  Speaking of previous articles, you will also want to read my post about “ATS Screening Strategy: How to Earn the Interview” as that will teach you all about how to format your resume. 

For your resume to work, it must have the right ATS compliant formatting, proper key word matching and demonstrate your one of the most qualified professionals applying for the position.  The job market is a competition, whether people like to admit it or not.  I have listed the links to my other articles down below, along with a few other tools from Job Scan and TagCrowd to help you with your resume preparation and evaluation.

What is a Key Word Exactly?

Key Word definition: Key words are descriptive words that the human resources or internal recruiters have inserted into the ATS for the specific job listings.  In other words they are the words that the employer has identified as key ingredients for the “perfect” candidate.  When your resume / cover letter are received, they are “screened” / examined by artificial intelligence looking for the number of key word matches.  You then are stacked in order of most matches to least.  The employer can set the number of keywords as high or as low as they like, but the job listing can give clues to what the key words are.  We’ll come back to that idea in a moment.  First, you must note that key words have to be an exact match.  If I say sales and you say account manager, that is NOT a match.  The two word/phrases mean the same thing, but the AI (artificial intelligence) will not recognize them as such.  Sales / selling would have the same issue.  The word or phrase must be an exact match to get ATS credit as a key word match.

Reviewing the job listing, you want to scan for the phrases that are repeated or that appear to be important to the description.  I suggest you print the listing, then use a highlighter to mark up the listing with the key words.  Next take your resume and look for the same words and mark them.   This will let you know where you stand before you begin your key word ninja work. 

Once you’ve finished this initial review, you’ll want to grab a red pen or highlighter of a different color.  Now you will improve your odds of winning the interview by finding words on your resume that are similar (sales = account manager) and swap the similar word you’ve used out for the word that they’ve used.

Example:

Job listing says:  We’re looking for a sales representative to service our clients and prospects in California.

Resume says: Account Manager at XYZ Corp from 2016 to 2020. 

Key Word Ninja Task:  Take the word Account Manager and next to it insert (Sales Representative) next to it or simply replace Account Manager and swap in Sales Representative. 

By making this switch, you will now be rewarded with a key word match when the AI analyzes your resume upon submission.  You will want to do this for the entire resume.  Go through the job listing and find the words you have highlighted that are not in your resume exactly as written in the listing, but that are things that accurately describe your skills, education and/or experience.

Key Word Tools

What do you do if you have trouble recognizing the key words?  My friend Kirsty Bonner taught me something a few years ago that is super helpful.  Take your job listing, copy it and paste it into (reference below) TagCrowd’s website.  Repeat the process for your resume.  You can then compare the size of the words and what are missing.  Another free tool is found at Job Scan, again referenced below.  They give five free scans of job listings and compare it to your resume.  I believe most of you after doing this exercise up to five times will have a good feel for what the key words are in a job listing.  If not, you can always hire a coach or resume writer to help you with each submission, if your finances allow it.

Please do not underestimate the importance of key word matching in the job search process.  When you are blindly applying for a job, if you fail to format your resume properly and/or key word match, you’ve pretty much guaranteed you will not get called for an interview.  For those who are good at formatting their resume and key word matching, they can still find jobs even in today’s competitive job search market.

I hope this article helps you improve your key word matching skills and highlighted the need to do so.

References:

Key Word Matching via TagCrowd: https://tagcrowd.com/

Job Scan services: https://www.jobscan.co/

Win The Interview: https://projecthelpyougrow.com/win-the-interview/

ATS Screening Strategy: How to Earn The Interview: https://projecthelpyougrow.com/ats-screening-strategy-how-to-earn-the-interview/