How to Get Your Resume Read in This Economy

It’s becoming more and more difficult to get your resume read by a live human as the job market shrinks and competition only increases.  We spoke with some industry insiders in human resources and here are some tips they provided to help get your resume noticed.

Keep it Short and Focused – Readers quickly lose interest in resumes that don’t get right to the point and are not succinct.  Also, it’s easy to get lost in the barrage of email between offers for generic “Viarga” if the company’s IT Department is on loan from Circuit Circus and doesn’t know how to set up a spam filter.  One expert suggests sending it via snail mail and keeping it short enough to fit onto the first sheet on a pad of fluorescent orange Post-it™ Notes.  That way, not only are you courteous of the person’s time, you have also been nice enough to bribe them with a free gift.

Demonstrate You’re Not a Drone – Let them know right off that you are a “Smart and Funny Sales Guy.”  Don’t go into detail that the description really indicates you have no willpower against rubbing your smart ass on the inept sales manager’s phone to the delight of co-workers at your current job.

Don’t Bury the Lead: Make Your Resume Read Like a News Story – An eye catching headline increases the odds of your resume being noticed instead of just a bland summary of qualifications.  Try something like, “Area Man Completes Quarterly Budget Presentation Complete with Graphs and Charts in PowerPoint in the Same Amount of Time Co-worker Spent on the Can Reading Maxim.”

Keywords Are King – Use the appropriate keywords to show up in resume searches like: facilitated, implemented, increased, or a minimum of four industry specific words, or even just copy and paste their job description into your summary of qualifications.  As an added benefit, this approach will also doubly ensure that the Aflac duck will find you before anyone else.

Let Former Employers Do the Legwork for You – If you have been laid off, it’s a great opportunity to get positive words of recommendation from your former employer to set you apart.  At the end of your resume you can add a “What Others Say” section.  Include a statement like:  “An employee who stuck with the job day in and day out right up until the day we escorted him from the building.”