Resume YETI

Include Key Skills on your Resume to Beat Applicant Tracking Systems

TestimonialsApplicant Tracking System, ATS, Find a job, Functional Resume, get a job, Get Hired, improve resume, job recruiters, key skills, Keywords, perfect resume, recruiting, Resume, Resume Advice, Resume OptimizationResume Yeti

Jun 2017

The Key Skills/Core Competencies section is generally the second major section of the resume, placed right after your header – containing your name, email, phone number, and relevant social media links – and your professional profile. In Resume Yeti’s Anatomy of a Perfect Resume, we liken the Professional Profile and Key Skills sections to an “elevator pitch.” In other words, it’s a lightning fast way to create a portrait of your strengths. In a more technical sense, this section is also a way to clearly include keywords that will rank you higher in Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS).

You can read more about ATS here, but in short, the ATS is the first step of the hiring manager’s resume screening process. If the company uses an ATS in the hiring process, then before a person ever looks at your resume, it will be fed through the system in order to select only the applicants that are a “match” for the job description. The ATS only selects resumes that contain specific keywords that are relevant to the position. So, it is crucial to make sure that your resume contains the correct keywords to be selected out of the first screening pool and move on to the next step in the application process, during which a person would evaluate your resume.

You inevitably include many keywords throughout your resume, in your job titles and the descriptions of your responsibilities. However, the Key Skills section is a place where you can take the opportunity to showcase your relevant skills all in one place. Some people recommend not including this section, but there is no reason why you shouldn’t. The benefits of listing your skills far outweigh any disadvantages to including them. Here are some of Resume Yeti’s Pro Tips on the advantages of including a Key Skills/Core Competencies section on your resume, and how to do it right.

Pro Tip: Including a Key Skills section will help you rank higher in an applicant tracking system (ATS)

As previously mentioned, an ATS is often the first step in screening applications for an open position. If your resume does not include enough content that matches the filters the hiring manager has set in the ATS, your resume will not be selected to move on to the next step in the process.

The use of Applicant Tracking Systems is on the rise. An article on Recruiting Daily states that an estimated 75% of big companies use an ATS. And with developments in the technology, it’s becoming much easier and more affordable for small companies to use the programs, too. Advertisements for Applicant Tracking Systems boast that for employers, the use of an ATS is cost effective and saves extensive amounts of time in the hiring process. Since most companies are using these programs, it is likely your resume will need to be ATS friendly. Therefore, it’s best to prepare your resume so that if it is screened electronically, you’ll have enough matching keywords to move on.

Pro Tip: Your Key Skills should mirror the job descriptions that interest you

So now you know why you need to include a Key Skills/Core Competencies section on your resume, the next logical question is how to do it. The best possible way that you can prepare your resume for an Applicant Tracking System is to be sure that it includes many of the same keywords as the jobs you’re applying for. Hiring managers will often pull keywords from the job description itself to plug into the ATS filters. It’s a good idea for your Key Skills section to mirror the job description.

Apart from those listed in the job description, you can include additional Key Skills that are relevant to the industry of the job you’re applying for. Browse similar job postings, and take note of the desired skill requirements that are being solicited.

We at Resume Yeti make this task even easier for you by providing a Resume Keyword index. In this Index, you’ll find categorized lists of the most common keywords for over 150 different professions. In addition to your own research, including some keywords from this index may help your resume to rank higher in the ATS, and hopefully get your resume in front of human eyes!

Pro Tip: Include a maximum of 20 Key Skills in this section

Once you realize the importance of trying to match your resume to the ATS filters, it’s easy to get carried away and want to include everything you find, to be sure that your resume passes the first screening. But you also have to remember that once your resume does make it past the electronic portion of the process, the same document has to pass a human screening, too. Listing 3 pages of Key Skills might make you appealing to a computer program, but it’s likely to deter human interest in your resume. Thus, you’ll need to strike a balance between optimizing your resume’s keywords for the ATS and optimizing your resume’s other content (like Professional Experience, Education, Noteworthy, Accomplishments, etc.) and aesthetic. We recommend making an extensive initial list of keywords and selecting your top 20 for inclusion in your Key Skills section. Most Key Skills sections will consist of 2 or 3 columns instead of one long list to save space, so you’ll want to make sure these columns are balanced out as well.

Image source: #WOCinTechChat

How to get Recruited for a Job

Testimonialsapply to jobs, Find a job, Get Hired, Get Noticed, get recruited, improve resume, job recruiters, recruitment, recruitment agencies, recruitment agency, ResumeResume Yeti

Jun 2017

Recruitment for a job can come in many different forms. Traditionally, job recruitment has been limited to job boards, classified ads, and recruitment firms. Nowadays, job recruitment, like many other industries, has sprawled out across the Internet and takes place in a myriad of unique and unconventional ways. Digital job boards like Monster.com, Indeed.com, Idealist.org, and CareerBuilder.com have replaced traditionally published classified ads, and have become the “go-to” platforms where job seekers search for open positions. However, recruitment (in which hiring managers and recruiting agents seek out potential job candidates, not the other way around) is now happening at several other levels. There are many strategies job seekers can utilize in order to get noticed by recruiters and be ready to jump on exciting opportunities that arise in the ever-constant job hunt. While recruitment is certainly not something that job seekers can consistently count on, it is certainly an exciting way to open yourself up to opportunities that you might not have otherwise encountered on your own. What follows are Resume Yeti’s Pro Tips on how to ready yourself to be recruited.

**Pro Tip: Keep your resume up to date, up to the minute.**

Keeping your resume current is the most important element of job hunting. It’s an easy thing to let go of when you’ve been employed for a while or when you haven’t had to send your resume out in a long time. But it is absolutely crucial that you tend to your resume each and every time there is something new that you could add to it. If a recruiting opportunity arises and your resume is not ready, you will become overwhelmed by the process of updating and perfecting your resume, and in the time it takes to do that, you may miss the deadline to apply, or the recruiter might think you lost interest because of the lag in your response time. So, right now, before you do anything, get your resume up to date!

Pro Tip: Develop your skills to stay relevant

Almost as crucial as keeping your resume up to date, is keeping yourself up to date. Your skills, that is. As we mentioned above, today’s job market is seamlessly intertwined with the digital realm. Digital technology upheaves, updates, and revitalizes itself seemingly in the blink of an eye. This means that, at any given moment, your digital skill set may become outdated or obsolete.

To keep your skills relevant, it’s important that you’re constantly searching through job listings and job descriptions to ensure that the skill set that you posses is in line with what hiring managers expect of job candidates in your industry. If you come across something in your skill set that you need to brush up on or learn for the first time, you can keep yourself relevant by signing up for a seminar, class, or workshop to develop that skill. Attending skill development classes in your industry will also put you in contact with others in that industry whom you may not have met otherwise. Who knows, recruitment opportunities could arise for you simply by keeping your skill set up to date.

Pro Tip: Go to networking events and keep your own network current

Another way to be recruited, outside of digital job boards and attending skills development workshops, is to network your heart out. This includes regularly attending networking events within your industry. A quick Google search of “[your industry]” + “networking events” + “[your location]” will yield tons of networking opportunities for you, ranging from formal meet and greet events to more informal networking cocktail hours. Don’t forget to bring your business cards!

Staying on top of your networking game doesn’t only apply to expanding your professional network. It also applies to keeping in touch with your current network. Your contacts will be much more likely to reach out to you with an opportunity or help you out if you maintain your relationship with them past the time that you actually worked together. Keep in touch with them. Invite them to coffee or happy hour to catch up, see what projects they’re working on, what their next career plans are. That way, your relationship with your contacts is not purely transactional. It’s pretty transparent when an old work contact emails or calls out of the blue and asks for a favor. People in your network are much more likely to reach out or respond to you if you show them that you genuinely care about them outside of asking them for a random employment favor.

Pro Tip: Make yourself visible

Make yourself easy to find. One of the easiest methods of screening applicants or recommended job candidates is to Google them, and hiring managers do it. If you’re hoping to be recruited, you need to find ways to make yourself come up in a list of search results. There are so many ways to improve your visibility. The easiest and most practical way is to open your own professional social media accounts. Number one on this list should be LinkedIn. LinkedIn is a pool of about 250 million people in the modern workforce. Participating in this community increases your odds of being noticed by some of them. Making a LinkedIn profile in your name will also make your name appear in the results when someone Googles you. For tips on how to increase your visibility on LinkedIn, check out their article, “It’s Your Career: How to Get Recruiters to Notice You on LinkedIn.” Another way to increase your visibility in search engines is to make a website, if it makes sense for your work and your industry. Even if the “site” is just a landing page with some information about you, the most important thing is that your name and site would be another item that surfaces in a Google search of your name.

Again, being recruited is not a given. But if you test out these Pro Tips, you may find opportunities rolling in that were not made available to you previously. At the very least, by constantly readying yourself for job opportunities, you open yourself to be capable of applying immediately and confidently for outstanding positions you come across in your job hunt.

Image Source: #WOCinTechChat