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SEA 30 Day Program 3
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Now we will address your physical marketing pieces – your cover letter and resume.
I’ve worked in communications and public relations for over 20 years. What I’ve learned is the same tactics you use to create a product campaign work on creating memorable resumes and cover letters. It’s about getting attention and keeping it.
If you are applying for jobs mainly online, you need to be aware of something called Applicant Tracking Software – or ATS. Today there is software designed to comb through online applications and look for specific keywords or skills. If your resume doesn’t match the criteria, then it will be kicked out and no real human will ever see it. That’s why we’ve really focused on your skills and keywords in job posting. It’s important you understand their importance and include those in key areas of your resume.
You’ll need to create a resume and cover letter specific to each job you apply for. I recommend you create one basic resume and then tweak it for each individual job posting you are interested in. You’ll do that by reading through the job ad and make specific lists of the skills, software, or other qualifications it mentions. You’ll then go through your resume and find places you can incorporate that same language. When you add previous job history, you’ll want to make sure you add those key words when you talk about what you did.
The most successful resumes are targeted for a specific job and are clear in focus. If your resume doesn’t get seen, it doesn’t matter how qualified you are. Using keywords gets you past the gatekeeper. One survey reports 75% of resumes submitted are never even seen by a human.
ATS doesn’t just kick you out of the system because you didn’t use the right words. Formatting can also be an issue. Be careful with online templates that are full of icons, images, or look like a graphic design project on steroids. Unless you are in a creative field, the traditional form is most likely best. ATS can also kick you out for using off fonts or atypical font sizes. Make sure you have clean margins and don’t use a lot of text boxes, shading or odd symbols for your bullet points.
It sounds crazy that you could be the most qualified candidate and never make it to a decision makers desk because you used a font the computer didn’t like, but it happens more times than you can imagine.
The payoff of targeting your resume is priceless – think new job, career, higher salary and being happier doing what you love.