Tailoring Your Resume to Different Jobs (Part 2)

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In the last blog, we mentioned why and how one can precisely customize his or her resume to appear in front of a human resource employee or what is called now as "Talent Acquisition Specialist". In this blog, we will discuss major keywords and formatting that should be in your resume for a better job description match.

Applicant Tracking System (ATS) is used commonly in many companies across the globe as it makes hiring the right candidate easy, fast and convenient. Having the right keywords for the right job description will increase your chances of being interviewed by your dream company, if there is one. Looking at a certain job description in order to take the major keywords that might vary from 3 to 20 words is the most critical factor in intelligently making the ATS pass your resume to the company recruiter. For example, Lean manufacturing, D8 methodology, A3 reports, ERP, Value Stream Mapping and Statistical Process Control are all industry-specific terms in my field, manufacturing. Thus, including all of these keywords as well as showing the reader how you accurately used these tools/concepts in your job, not only telling them, are key to getting a job interview.

Most of the keywords have also to be between the beginning and middle of your resume, because, if your resume was passed by ATS, it will attract the reader right off the bat; therefore, the reader will continue reading your vita. Redundancy might be sometimes important as it puts a strong emphasis on a specific skill that you gained over a period of time. However, this does not mean you should repeat an industry-specific term more than three times. Repeating the same thing differently can be a bit tricky, but you can accomplish this by selectively visiting other similar job descriptions that have comparable words that you can put them in your resume.

Formatting is really crucial because it makes your resume look clean, organized and appealing. The formatting I follow is americanized, over-thought and smartly utilized space. So, you do not really have to follow this particular formatting, unless you see value in it. My Margins are top: 0.4" bottom: 0.2" left:0.5" and right:0.5". In the top of my resume, I include my full name "Yazed M. Alsuhebany" and contact information. I include my middle name as an acronym because it is more attractive as it is associated with scientists/scholars. My contact information covers my home address, phone number, email, LinkedIn account and my blog.

I do not include highlights at the beginning of my resume as it is redundant and space-consuming. I go straight to the current position or education if you just graduated. So, if your work experience comes first, then list all the positions you had in the past plus the current one. Additionally, include all the positions you had within a single company. Thereafter, list your education along with all your job-related classes. Someone might argue that you should not include your classes as almost everyone in your program takes them and other students around the world do too. However, there are optional job-related classes that differ from one student to another and this sometimes can make the difference. List your rewards if you have, major GPA if higher than cumulative GPA and specialization area (different from your major).

In summary, your keywords and formatting can definitely make you standout among many applicants. Making these two factors a top priority when building your resume is one of the major keys to successfully getting a job interview.