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Feb 9, 2009 1:47 pm US/Central
Know The 'Buzz Words' To Include On Your Résumé
(CBS 11 / TXA 21)
More than half of all companies today rely on online applications to hire new employees. Each month thousands of people join the ranks of job seekers, so it's crucial to know how to make your résumé catch someone's eye.
With hundreds of people often applying for one position, experts suggest using certain 'buzz words' to get you noticed and back to work.
"It's ways of describing things," one applicant explained.
For example, in his old résumé Farr wrote that he "managed special projects." Now he plans to change it.
"I realized very quickly that if I somehow inverted that and described myself as having been project manager, that the phrase 'project manager' might get a hit," Farr said.
Company recruiters aren't sifting through résumés by hand. They're sorting them electronically, and using keywords or buzz words to determine which résumés they'll read. "Buzz words are important from the standpoint of they may help set you aside from the people who don't have the same background experience that you do," said recruiter Sam Burns.
For example, while searching for a director of fundraising, Burns wanted someone who had worked with Raiser's Edge software. He typed it in and found a few dozen résumés.
Experts warn that applicant do not want to put every keyword you find in a résumé job description. If you do, it'll look like you just copied it.
The best way to find keywords is to look in newspaper ads or to use career websites such as
Flipdog.com or Monster.com. On these, you'll find numerous companies that use the same keywords to describe similar jobs.
There are specific keywords for every industry. But at Careerbuilder.com, manager Jason Ferrara is sharing a little known secret -- a list of universal keywords that attract attention.
"Anything about leadership, customer retention, product planning, strategic development," Ferrara said.
There are more than 20 words on the universal keyword list. Check them out below:
Keyword List:
Strategic planning
Performance and productivity improvement
Organizational design
Infrastructure
New Media
Internet
E-commerce
Change Management
Team building
Leadership
Competitive market
Product positioning
Investor and board relations
Oral and written communications
Problem solving and decision making
MBA
Project management
Customer retention
Business development
Corporate vision
Long-range planning
Cost reduction
Experts say even if you have the right buzz words, your résumé still needs to be correct and neat. So search out any spelling and grammatical errors.
For a free critique of your résumé log onto the Careerbuilder webiste.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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