Online & E-Mailed Resumes: Words to Avoid/Include

An article this week in the Net-Temps Crossroads e-newsletter discusses words to avoid in online resumes, such as personal pronouns (these should be avoided in all versions of your resume), negative words (again, should be avoided in all versions), and big-sounding words that will make you sound stilted or even stupid, and possibly end up backfiring in an interview when it is clear you do not really know what they mean.

The article also advises avoiding use of industry acronyms, a point on which I disagree. Certainly you will want to spell out any acronym at least once on its first usage, but particularly for those in technical professions, acronyms can be the very thing that a recruiter or hiring manager will search for in a resume database. On the other hand, liberal sprinkling of internal acronyms specific to a particular company does make a resume harder to read and as the author says, “start to look like secret code.”

The much-discussed topic of keywords is something you will want to understand before posting your resume online or e-mailing it in response to a posting. As pointed out in a recent Resume Writer's Digest article, “Just as job-seeking clients use keywords to narrow down the range of possibilities in their job search, hiring managers and recruiters also use keywords to identify and select candidates that meet their requirements.” Once your resume disappears into one of these huge databases, the only way that it will emerge is by generating a “hit” on a keyword search. For this reason, you’ll want to make sure that your resume includes abilities, functional skills, academic degrees and certifications, technical terms, business processes, industries, etc. that are relevant to the types of positions that interest you.

Keyword density is another factor to be aware of. Some of the newer automated database search systems apply sophisticated tools and algorithms to rank-order results based on how often they appear in the document. But don’t load up your resume with bogus repetition of your keywords, or today’s systems will either toss your resume out or put it at the bottom of the list. Do be sure that your keywords appear prominently in context within your profile or summary as well as within the body of your work experience section.

A consideration when e-mailing your resume is making sure that spam filters to do not screen out your document inadvertently. If your email system has a spam filter, email the resume to yourself and see if it makes it through. Try sending it to friends and associates with different spam filtering software. An article on CareerJournal.com as early as 2004 indicated that losing resumes in spam filters was becoming a growing problem, and it certainly has not gone away. An employment recruiter quoted in the article said that a review of her spam filter had found among 756 ads and other spam 8 resumes, all set for automatic deletion. “The mere presence of words such as "free," "expand," "trial," "mortgage," or exclamation points” could trigger a spam filter. Even seemingly innocuous words or phrases taken out of context can run afoul of a spam filter. One man received an automated response that said his resume had been deleted because it contained a specific obscenity, which the response detailed. Mr. Hunter changed "magna cum laude" to "with high honors," and it sailed through just fine. This only left him wondering how many times his resume had gone straight to the cyber space "circular file."

On a related note, be sure to check your own spam filter. One gentleman quoted in the CareerJournal.com article said that he was just about to delete an e-mail in his spam folder that was from a recruiter at a major high-technology company, and "almost fainted" when he saw the company line and signature. He very nearly missed the opportunity for an interview with that company.

Posted by Laurie Smith

Comments

[Mark Cummuta]

Laurie,

I have been writing a blog for CIO Magazine for several months now on executive job search tips and techniques, and how I am using them in my own job search. [http://advice.cio.com/blogs/cio_job_search_a_real_life_chronicle ]

Your post was right on target for me since I am working with a resume writer right now to redesign my resume.

In working with Phil Rosenberg of reCareered, we have discussed in detail what keywords to use, how, how often, where on the resume, etc. From my experience, and as verified by Mr.Rosenberg, THE best place to find what keywords are critical are in the specific job spec that you are applying to. That means that in order to be effective, your resume needs to be highly customized for each and every job position you apply to.

Some people clearly get the concept of keywords, but then lose it in their delivery. For example, I heard of someone who tried to "game the system" by embedding his/her electronic resume with multiple references to major keywords, all "hidden" in the whitespace of the resume by coloring those extra keywords in white, as well. Problem is, those words will either remain invisible and so not get scanned at all, or worse still, the scanner will pick them up and convert them to plain text along with all the other intended words.

Thanks again!

Mark Cummuta