On the internet resumes must be catchy

Keywords attract recruiters' attention

For the uninitiated, on the web job seeking can seem positively confounding. When you press the submit button and send your resume out into the ether, how can you be sure that it will land on the right desk? Even if it does, how do you know it will be read?

Management professor John Sullivan of San Francisco State University explains how to keep your resume from being relegated to the slush pile:

Think like a recruiter.

Because recruiters have to go through hundreds of resumes a day, they have developed methods for separating the wheat from the chaff. One technique is to sort resumes by keyword. These words can be anything from technical terms to buzzwords and business jargon.

You stand a much better chance of having your resume land on the "keep" pile if you make good use of keywords, Sullivan says. You can usually determine some of the keywords that will be used as search criteria by closely examining a job description. "If a word is mentioned twice, it's likely to be important," he says.

Hint: Recruiters gravitate to candidates who look poised to move up the ladder. "If you add to your resume skills for the next job up, you'll be more desirable to them," counsels Sullivan.

Capture their attention fast.

"Thirty seconds is the longest a recruiter will initially look at one resume," warns Sullivan. "If they find something interesting, you'll get a maximum of three minutes." This means that your resume has to be calibrated for maximum impact.

You can snag their attention in a number of ways, including moving all relevant jobs and qualifications to the top, making good use of keywords and emphasizing anything that's likely to differentiate you. Beyond this, Sullivan recommends directly responding to the queries in the job description. If the position you want requires six years of experience and you have it, come right out and state that. This only makes the recruiter's job easier.

Sullivan advocates a couple of techniques for making sure your resume is up to par. First, try holding an informal focus group. Take your name off the resume and pass it around to five or more impartial readers. Ask them to tell you what's most intriguing to them, what's putting them to sleep and what's downright obnoxious.

After you've made any necessary changes, post the resume on an on the web job site and see how many hits it gets. Then tweak it a bit by adding more keywords or rearranging your experience. Repost and see if you get more traffic.

Up your "Google score."

Many recruiters now use search engines to get a better picture of applicants. To ensure that you're presenting your ideal face on the world wide web, it's important to manage your "Google presence," Sullivan says.

To get a positive "Google score," make an effort to attend professional workshops and conferences that are likely to list your activities on the internet, give presentations or contribute to an industry periodical. You might even think about starting a blog, but remember to keep things professional.

Be strategic.

If you're trying to break into a company with a surplus of applicants, you need to be strategic about separating yourself from the pack. Try reaching out to people who already work in the organization. You can do this by joining professional organizations they take part in or going to events where you'll have the opportunity to mingle with employees and in-house recruiters.

If the people in charge of hiring can put a face to the name when your resume comes across their desks, you're far likelier to land an interview, Sullivan says.

You might also want to take advantage of seasonal lulls when both recruiters and hiring managers have more down time. The holidays are a particularly good time to submit a resume, according to Sullivan, because most people wait until the new year to begin their job search.

Send it, send it and then send it again.

Finally, be persistent. If the organization you're applying to is inundated by applications, yours stands a good chance of getting lost in the mix, so don't hesitate to send it repeatedly.

"No personal system in the world punishes you for having too many resumes," states Sullivan.

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