Many of my clients work very hard perfecting their resume — or even pay to have it “done” and then don’t touch it again till their next job change. They put all their efforts into writing a first-rate cover letter, explaining how they fit a job ad’s requirements and how they’d be great.
A good cover letter is indeed worth some trouble. No quarrel there. But ignoring the job ad in the resume you send, or just changing one or two sentences, won’t do it these days. There’s a good chance that you’ll be screened out before human eyeballs ever look at your resume.
Says who?
I’ve been blogging about the necessity of tailoring your resume for years. Now LinkedIn makes it crystal clear why.
LinkedIn ads show why you need to tailor your resume.
LinkedIn’s recent ads are addressed to employers. LinkedIn states that they can provide an employer with a number of names of qualified employees — employees whose backgrounds “match” the job offered by the employer.
Tell it like it is.
LinkedIn isn’t beating around the bush. They have the capability to do key word searches on the hundreds of thousands of profiles in their data bases. Most of these are profiles which include all or most of the material from their participants’ resumes. It’s fast and easy for them to electronically comb through these profiles for the words that best match the words in a job ad. (Who knows — maybe they also use actual resumes you’ve submitted on LinkedIn to places you’ve applied to through LinkedIn.)
So, folks: what’s the implication for those of you who don’t tailor your resume?
You snooze, you lose. At least if you want LinkedIn to tell employers you are a good match for their jobs.
And recognize that even if you apply directly to an employer, not through LinkedIn, chances are that the employer will be using key words to assess your resume against the keywords in the job ad they’ve put out there.
And what about your beautiful cover letter?
I’m not saying don’t work on it or it isn’t a good thing to include. It can be very helpful, and sometimes is the thing that shows extra effort and gets you the interview over someone with equal qualifications who doesn’t write one. Employers do care.
But are we sure they — meaning their Applicant Tracking System keyword scanner —even reads the cover letter?
I’m not. I can’t find out in what percent of times cover letters are scanned, but I’ll bet it isn’t 100%. Why not? Because it’s a second document to scan, and that’s more trouble and expense for the employer – or the firm, such as Taleo, whom the employer hires to prepare and run the keyword scans on your application.
The implication: tailor both your resume and cover letter.
Three tips on tailoring your resume.
OK, if I’ve convinced you that you’d better tailor your resume, how do you do it?
1. Go through the job ad carefully, underlining or highlighting all the key skills and knowledge areas the ad says the company wants. Then think hard about EACH highlighted word or phrase. Have you ever done this in your career thus far — even a little?
2. If so, work it into your resume. Best foot forward. No lying or stretching the truth. But consider: you don’t have to be the world’s greatest expert to say you have experience doing something. Even a very modest amount is a green light to claim it on your resume. (Women note: most women are more reticent to do this than men.)
3. Then in your interview, if they ask you about your level of experience, and you haven’t had a lot, you can say so. “I took an online course in how to use x, and in my job before this, I used it several times in creating the new data set the company was looking for”. You shouldn’t exaggerate. But even modest experience is better, way better, than none.
4. Want to check how well you match the job ad? Consider trying a free analysis on a site called Jobscan. Others sites now offer this too.
5. What about your LinkedIn profile? Clearly you don’t want to change your LinkedIn for each job you apply to. But put up a pretty complete profile, which includes the key skill sets and knowledge areas that represent your knowledge and experience.
One technique — copy your most representative resume into LinkedIn, and then add skills and knowledge you have used in, say, the last 6 applications you’ve made. You might get found and sent as a good match by LinkedIn to employers. And even if this doesn’t happen, know that most employers check out LinkedIn to see if you look like the same person, more or less, on LinkedIn as you do in the resume you sent them, though that resume may be more complete.
The bottom line: Keyword scanning is happening more often than not. (Small organizations usually don’t use it). Take time to tailor your resume and be sure your LinkedIn represents you well. It’s the name of the game in this automated age.