Magic words in your Resume!

Resume writing tips

Writing a resume is a bit like creating a work of art. There’s a hint of poetry to it: given strictly limited space and conditions, you try to say who you are, expressively.

Or perhaps it’s a word-sculpture that you keep building. Chipping away here, moving this over there, trying out another word or phrase or arrangement-until suddenly it works!

Sometimes it fees like polishing silver, revealing the precious radiance hidden beneath.

Or like washing off a dusty mirror and seeing what you look like from a fresh new perspective.

A resume can be like a sophisticated comic strip; you draw little word sketches of yourself, taking appropriate license with the arrangement of dry historical facts to tell a higher truth;

1) What motivates and moves you
2) What work your heart wants to do
3) Where your hidden or not-so-hidden talents are
4) What you’ve done that makes your feel proud
5) What calls forth your passion, competence, and loyalty.

A fine resume is like a flattering snapshot; it captures you at your best, revealing your unguarded beauty.

When it’s really good, you have a surprisingly intimate portrait giving the reader as advance clue to your essence…telling them what they really want to know; what’s special about you.

You’ll notice that a “Summary” or “Profile” appears at the top of most of the resumes. This feature is a fairly recent innovation in resume writing and distinguishes a “damn good resume” from, for example, curriculum vitae, in that a “damn good resume” is most definitely a self-marketing piece of writing.

The summary is meant to quickly capture the reader’s attention and interest-much like a headline on a newspaper article. It should outline the crucial information and inspire the reader to delve deeper for the details.

A good summary, then could point out:

1) The number of ears or months of experience in the field.
2) Your education, training or certification in that field.
3) An accomplishment or recognition that “says it all”, if possible.
4) Your key skills, talents, or special knowledge related to the target job.
5) Something unique about your personal work style or attitude toward the job, that would look appealing to an employer.

Check the effectiveness of your resume by asking yourself:

. Is every item is my summary relevant to my job target?
. Have I backed up al the summary statements through the one-liners in the body of my resume?

Making your resume “Scanner-Friendly”

Many large companies now use a computer program such as Resumix to electronically scan applicant’s resumes into a computer database. For the company, It’s much cheaper and easier to file all those resumes in the computer- Because they can later search them electronically for certain keywords and quickly identify applicants qualified for a particular job opening.( The computer ignores all the resumes that don’t contain the right key words.)

But resume scanning can work for you as well as for the employer. You can call the company and find out, before submitting your resume. They use an electronic resume scanner. If they say “yes” then you need to be sure your resume contains all the magic words their computer is programmed to search for.

But what are those magic words? Exactly what the computer look for depends on the job opening and you find most of the magic words in the company’s job description or classified ad for that job.