Tips for Preparing Your Cyber Resume

Think nouns, not verbs. Career counselors used to advise job seekers to pepper their resumes with action verbs that would impress human resource staffers. Web resumes also get scanned–by digital eyeballs. Companies then use software that combs through resumes for words that signal job titles, technical skills, and levels of education or experience. And most of those words are nouns. Now employers search for nouns such as what software programs you can use.

The more buzzwords, the better. Career counselors also used to advise students to avoid buzzwords in their resumes. Today buzzwords are all the buzz. “Applicant-tracking systems” rank resumes by the number of keywords in them. If a company is looking for an accountant trainee with knowledge of Lotus 1-2-3, Microsoft Excel, and Peachtree Office Accounting, it can rank resumes according to whether they include all three programs, two of them, and so on.

Don’t forget to describe your personality and attitude. Just because most resume searches are computerized doesn’t mean that companies don’t look for human qualities. A tracking system can identify behavioral traits–dependability, responsibility, a high energy level–as easily as it can technical skills. Be enthusiastic and let your passion show.

Personal home pages should be all business. Like many job seekers, you may want to include a link in your Web resume to a personal Web page, where you can post detailed information about your career. But don’t use up your page with photos of you, your family, or your pets. An HR manager at a big chemical company puts it this way: “I’m not looking for a pretty face. I’m looking for a skill. What you look like is not a skill.”

It’s not a resume–it’s a movie trailer. Electronic resumes do eventually get read by real human beings–on a computer screen. You have about 20 lines to grab their attention. So don’t waste precious real estate on details such as your address. Lead with your technical skills and personal qualities. Identify yourself as a solution to someone’s problem.

Break the one-page rule. Limiting your resume to what will fit on a single piece of paper doesn’t mean much in the online world. If you can hold your readers’ attention, they’ll keep scrolling. But don’t overdo it. At some point, most executives do print out resumes that they find interesting.

Ask the wizard. These days, most word processing programs come with good resume templates and with “wizards”–step-by-step guides that walk you through the templates. If you’re looking for a real wizard, visit the Professional Association of Resume Writers (www.parw.com).

Source: Gina Imperator, “35 Ways to Land a Job Online,” Fast Company (August 1998), pp. 194-195.

Copyright by Pinoytexas.com  ; Dallas, TX  Aug. 6, 2003