Perhaps you’d be surprised to know that your resume is not screened by human beings, but by software before it reaches human resources.
How should you write your resume to ensure it stands out in a crowded resumes database?
Including good resume keywords and powerful resume phrases can make your resume look professional, appealing, and most importantly, relevant, and scannable by software and hiring managers alike.
Maximizing the Impact of Resume with Keywords and Phrases
It is not only important that your resume is accessible, scannable, and analyzable by software, but also by the person who reads it.
Remember, the keywords you use in your resume are the professional language of your industry, meaning they are the terms, jargon, and expressions used to communicate your experience, skills, and educational qualifications to potential employers.
This article reviews the usage of keywords in resumes and provides key tips on how to find and incorporate relevant keywords for your industry, occupation, and field of interest using various techniques and tools.
Read further.
The Importance of Keywords and Phrases in Your Resume
What is a keyword?
Keyword is a specific word or a phrase which occurs in a text document.
Keyword is a term – this term is generally used to specify a single word or a phrase. Phrase is a combination of several words, sometimes a short sentence.
You may also stumble upon the term key-phrase (for key phrases), or key term, but these are not in use as often as the term “keyword”.
What is a resume keyword?
Because of the vast amount of resumes that every human resources compress in their database, most of these HR work with an electronically tool to scan and screen these resume when they look for potential applicants.
This tool is called Resume Scanner Software or Recruiting Management Software.
This scanner will pick your resume up based on the keywords (or key terms) used in it.
Some facts about keywords and key resume phrases
Most of the resumes today are stored in databases. The reasons are as follows –
- HR department and recruiting agencies must handle hundreds, sometimes thousands of resumes per job opening.
- Software and databases are used to handle and analyze resumes.
- These software help Human Resources manage volumes of data to make the resume handling process more efficient.
- Resumes are scanned and screened by software based on specific keywords, phrases and buzz words used per industry.
- Any industry, field and occupation have its own group of key words (and phrases) – These are actually professional/technical terms.
As for key phrases, when a well written resume is read by employers and the right phrases (and keywords) are used, it looks professional – The resume will stand out among others.
Should you use keywords in a resume?
Certainly, you should.
Needless to say, that if you want that your resume gets found, being a good match for a position, you should write it using specific keywords.
Finding the Right Resume Keywords for Your Industry
There are two common ways to find these keywords:
- Job postings – Look for professional terms used in some job postings in your industry.
- Resumes samples – Search for professional terms in resumes samples.
- Job Search Engines – The internet is full of job search engines that provide job listings. Google these search engines and you will find a combination of job titles and professional expertise for each job that you are looking for.
As for #1, here is a simple way –
Browse for example to indeed.com or type in Google [your position] indeed.com.
For example, Type: Software programmer indeed.com
- Look for any job description (i.e. job requirement) of the job are interested in.
- Copy and paste some interesting job postings to a separate sheet.
- Carefully read this job postings/advertisement.
- After a second/third time look, the most used keywords per section will pop up, key words such as – key skills requirement, education requirement and employment history.
As for #2, it is even simpler – This blog contains hundreds of resume samples.
You may also use the search box located at the header to find the resume of your interest. These resume samples were designed to contain these specific phrases and key words.
As for #3, Look for the general job description (i.e. job requirement) of the jobs that you are interested in.
You can look to any job posting, relevant to your job hunting target, and screen out the keywords, such as – professional expertise, technology skills, education, years of experience/education, some action words and relevant competencies.
Secondly, look for keywords such as:
- Job Titles, professional expertise.
- Product Names, Service type, Technical/Industry terms.
- Software or Hardware areas.
- University Certifications and the name of the educational institution.
Where to insert the keywords into your resume?
There are four places to aim to – resume objectives, education, professional courses and resume career summary.
These paragraphs are the most important parts of your resume.
How to Use Keywords in your Resume
In fact, keywords are professional terms.
Your mission is to find this term and use them in a natural way in your resume.
Therefore, it would be wise to make a little research and prepare a keywords list before writing and constructing your resume.
The mission is to embed/combine these keywords within sentences and phrases in your resume.
Of course, this should be based on actual work history/background – Knowledge, experience, and individual’s skill sets.
What Keywords to Use in a Resume
For communicating your best qualities, keywords (and key phrases) can be categorized into the following pieces of information –
- Technical Knowledge
- Professional Skills and Personal traits
- Professional experience – Your knowledge and employment history.
- Education Degrees – Educational qualification, educational institutions, professional courses and training
- Special expertise
Examples of technical keywords could be:
- Cisco CCNA or CCNP certifications
- PMP or CAPM for project management certifications
- VOIP, MGCP
- SQL Server, Visual Basic 6, .NET, DLL, C++, C#
List by Industry – Resume Keywords and Phrases Examples
Let us understand the process with an example of phrases and keyword optimization –
List of resume keywords by industry
An example of a marketing resume keywords list (partial) is as follows:
- Marketing strategies.
- Marketing plan, business plan, managing budget.
- Branding, brand.
- Product launching.
- Marketing cycle of a product.
- Business development.
- Conference, trade shows, road map.
- Market trend, competitor information, competition analysis.
- Social media, Internet, web, creative design.
Remember that education degrees are integral parts of the keywords list, for example –
- Bachelors in marketing
- MBA from regionally accredited college or university
Best Resume Phrases
Sample key phrases for resume of the marketing field could be:
- Excellent communication skills both written and oral
- Strategic thinking: Experienced in developing marketing strategies.
- Promotion of the product.
- Decision maker.
- Industry market intelligence.
- Sales and marketing team player.
- Strong networking skills.
- Good presentation skills.
Examples of Keywords for Resumes
Here is a list of keywords for resumes as an example:
- Sales, Marketing, Sales Manager, Marketing manager, Retail.
- Product Manager, Project Manager, System Architect
- Account Executive, Manager, Director
- Business Intelligence, Business development
- Medical Sales, Medical Device
- Healthcare, Medical, Nurse, Physician, Therapist
- Finance, Accounting, Bank, banking, TAX, insurance
- Financial Advisor, Business Analyst
- Supervisor, Controller
- IT, CISCO, SAP, JAVA, ORACLE, ERP, BI, C++
- Ethernet & IP Networking, ATM, MPLS, IPMPLS, Carrier Ethernet, Metro Ethernet
- Wireless, VoIP, Triple play, IPTV & VOD
- Operations, Supply Chain, Logistics, Manufacturing, Packaging
- CEO, CFO, VP
- Human Resources, Recruiting
- Software, Programmer, Engineer, Specialist, Analyst, Administrator, Consultant, Architect, Development, Designer, Technicians