Making Your Resume (YOU) Easier to Find

Making Your Resume (YOU) Easier to Find

Do you have your resume posted online and never hear a peep from potential employers?

It’s so frustrating! You may feel as if no one finds value in your hard work. Well, I have good news. Employers do want to speak to you! They just don’t how to find you. So let’s make it easy for them.

Here is why it is so hard for them to find your resume. Have you ever “Googled” something? Have you ever tried to look up a website for something that you but you didn’t know the actual web address or company name, but you knew how to describe it? Do you always get the right website on your first try? Well, the same thing happens when a potential employer is searching for you.

Here are tactics to improve your resume “searchability” and in return visibility.

1. Key Phrases
In order to up your odds of being seen, you need to adjust your resume not just to have keywords, but key phrases. Go to www.indeed.com (a job board listing) and type the exact title for your past position. Don’t worry about setting a location in the search. Now, read the top 10 job postings from that search. Do you see anything common? Does that common phrasing pertain to what you accomplished at your last position? If so, adjust your resume to match that phrasing. Even be careful to match the tense of the phrase.

Examples of searchable phrases
Payroll Administrator: “process payroll”, “new hires”, “taxes and deductions”

Test the effectiveness of your “key phrases” by searching for them on www.indeed.com.

2. Past Titles and Alternate Titles
Wow! In the past five years as a recuiter, I have seen job titles really hurt folks chances of getting a new job. The miscommunication of what your title was versus your job function could possible keep you from getting an interview for months.

To address this, revisit the drill from “Key Phrases” above. Take key phrases from your job experience and search for them on www.indeed.com. Do you see a common title? Does that title fit what you did at your last role?

In order to display that you took on the other job title, try working the title into bullet points within your resume.

Example of listing alternate titles:
Vice President of Sales (Sales Manager, Outside Sales Representative)
-Served as the sales manager for a team of 4 inside sales representatives.
-Maintained role as a top producing Outside Sales Representative while providing direction to a team of sales trainees and seasoned account managers.

Office Manager (Payroll Administrator, HR Generalist)
-Assumed the role of a HR Generalist and Payroll Administrator.
-Successfully learned how to run weekly payroll for a staff of 30 employees
-In lieu of a company HR Generalist, I took ownership of new hire paperwork and benefits administration.

3. Tools of the Trade
In every industry there are specific tools to accomplish job functions. Don’t take what tools you use for granted. For a Payroll Administrator, this could be listing the software used to actually process the paychecks (ADP or PayChex).

You might underestimate the skills you learned that are specific to your industry. Employers search for this little details. And sometimes that is all they search for!

If you can not remember the name of the “system” from your last Accounts Payable position or the “diagnostics tool” from the last mechanic role you had, call an old colleague and find out. Get that exact tool listed on your resume.


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