How To Write A Resume – Three Types Of Word Choices Guaranteed To Attract An Employer's Attention
November 1, 2008 
17 Comments
Punctuation, grammar, and spelling are important
When considering how to write a resume, but regardless of whether you use resume services or go it on your own, you need to use attention-getting words throughout your resume and cover letter. This has become especially important in today’s job market where search bars have become the most commonly used tools used by human resources to find applicable resumes. They will also hold the attention of potential employers once they open your resume.
Keywords
When learning how to write a resume effectively, keywords will help the employer identify your resume with the traits and skill sets he or she is looking for in a future employee. To determine which words best suit you, go through job postings that suit your skills and contain detailed subscriptions. For example, a position for an accountant might include adjectives such as “certified” or be referred to as an “analyst”. Phrases such as “attention to detail” and “proficient” are also important for your job search.
As you read the ads, pick out the descriptions of the job title
As well as the words used to describe the desired skills. As you go through the process of learning how to write a resume, you will be able to incorporate the keywords used in the ad into your cover letter and resume. The trick is to balance these keywords while making sure it still reads naturally. If you are using resume services and large job banks, these words will also help you apply for various jobs that meet your criteria.
Power Words
The company website contains documents such as value statements, company objectives, and even company culture, which contain power words. Use them to target that particular business. Most job applicants skip over these portions of the website, but this mistake can mean the difference between landing the job and the delete button.
Identify words and ideas the company emphasizes in these documents.
These words often include phrases such as “meeting and exceeding expectations” and “an individualistic team player.” Industry-specific words are also important. For a newspaper CEO position, for example, these might include “developed in areas of competitive communication” or “influence, lead, and motivate in the media industry in a responsible and effective manner.” These words will also come into play when using various resume services and job banks.
Action Verbs
Incorporating action verbs into your resume involves writing style rather than research. Including phrases such as “have demonstrated” or “will be aiming to lead” do not initiate action and sound weak. Instead, rewrite these sentences to say “I demonstrate” and “I lead.” These verbs appear concise and firm. Employers will spend less time focusing on useless words and be able to pick up the keywords more easily.
Conclusion
Finally, and this can’t be emphasized enough, take the necessary time required to use proper grammar, punctuation and correct spelling. Incorrect grammar usage and spelling errors reflect poorly on you as a candidate for numerous obvious reasons, not the least of which is that you did not respect the employer enough to take the time to be thorough and conscientious. The ResumeBear™ Spell Check is one of many helpful ResumeBear™ tools to make your cover letter and resume writing efforts less time-consuming. However, nothing beats good old-fashioned proof-reading.
Learning how to write a resume is not rocket science, but it is certainly an art.
You need to communicate in a straightforward and concise manner while attracting the attention of potential employers in a positive manner. Continue using these important words and phrases in your cover letter, headlines, and filenames to give your resume an extra boost. Without using effective language, you could send out thousands of resumes yourself and through resume services without securing a job.
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This sumester we will be learning to write effective resumes. I will introduce the Resume Bear to my friends and classmates and also to the instructor. What an easy product to use.
I’ve already been warned that my company will be downsizing soon. I spent some time and read all of the great tips and information on your site. All I can say is, WOW and thank you!
Erica
Great product! Like all of the easy to use features.
I need all the help I can get. Need to have direction on doing my resume.
Useful info. I agree it is important to check other company literature to see what kinds of words and phrases are important to that company and in their industry. That may help your resume avoid being filtered out in a computerized sweep when it doesn’t have certain keywords.
These resume tips are by far the most helpful and thorough ones I’ve been able to find till date. Surely, it’ll be of great help for those looking for professional resume tips. Thanks a lot for the great advice!
Resume tips like these makes writing a professional resume much easier!
These are truly excellent and very effective resume tips to be kept in mind while writing a professional resume. Thanks a lot for it.
Great article,if you check-out ResumeBear, you will eliminate a lot of these problems and produce a professional resume.
The Resune Bear Blog should be must reading for all seniors before even attempting to find a job.
If you can’t take the time to proof read something as important as a resume, what type of employee will you make?
After reading this I see it’s time to re-write my resume, good stuff
I think these are common sense, and probably a bit overused. Most places/agencies have scanners that are programmed to catch the words they need. “Individualistic team player” probably isn’t in there…but something much more specific to the actual job is. Try cracking THAT algorithm, then post about that.
If you’re going on the assumption that a human being is doing the first cut of the resumes, this might be valuable… Otherwise… I’d say the biggest mistake I see people making from a structural point of view is
(a) Resume is too lengthy. One page is enough.
(b) Candidates do not know how to focus their experiences. Who cares about every single job you had, especially if they aren’t remotely relevant to what you’re applying for. Group like experiences. Show how you have become progressively more responsible. There’s nothing less compelling than someone trying to convince me how efficient, effective, and concise a writer they are, when they’ve failed the very first test of producing an efficient, effective, and concise resume…
(c) Candidates forget that this isn’t all about them. They don’t put themselves in the employer’s shoes. I want to know what you can do for me. Did you leave your last employer better off than when you got there? Have you demonstrated tangible success and initiative? I don’t want someone who is going to follow their job description. I want someone who is going to exceed that.
Tie that in to the advice above about “action verbs”. If you have a 10M sales goal, and you consistently exceeded those goals by 2M, quantify that– Consistently exceeded established sales goals by 20%.
Just a few tips.
Thanks Ruth Less Editor for the interesting take on the article.
However, point (a) can be debated more. If you have a well written and descriptive accounting of how you can better serve your new employer, take as many pages as you need. Just do not pad your resume with “junk” just to fill space.
Point (b) is great advice. However, most employers do want to know of any extended breaks in your employment history so you can list all that you have done and only give the title and company of positions that do not relate to the type of job you are applying for and go into detail of what you have done to improve those businesses that do relate to your new job.
Point (c) should be in BOLD letters as it is always about what you can do for your new employer.
Even in your interview, it should always be about what you can offer and not about what you want.
After you have been offered the position and only then should you get into what benefits you want and ask in tasteful ways.
Gary Gile recently posted..The Debt Crisis
Hi Gary,
Yes, I agree. If you’re the right person, you’re the right person, and the reader will be interested. I do however believe that the initial goal in making the cut is to get the interview, since it’s unlikely that you will be hired on the spot based on your resume! The pages and pages will come out later.. And the cover letter (well-written) will supplement the one-pager. I think people feel as though they need to show ALL of the their experience, when in fact, being able to package that experience in a way that is relevant is more important. Just my two cents. And I know that for every opinion I’ve listed here, there are people who believe the opposite, and have had success with the opposite approach. There are some professions, like academic, in which a long resume (listing publications, for example) is par for the course. However, I am thinking more along the lines of someone who has only had one or two longer term jobs. You don’t need three pages for that…
On point B, I’m not talking about extended breaks. I’m talking about jobs you held in high school, summer jobs, and the likes. Or, if you were an account manager at three different locations, but your duties/etc were the exact same, there’s really no need to repeat ALL of that three times. So yes, listing employers names etc is a good compromise.
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