Do not post your résumé online until you understand exactly what you may be getting into. The Internet is a wonderful tool to utilize when and if you are looking for a job or a change of career. However, there are some consequences of putting your résumé out for the world to look at that you may not be aware of.
Some of these consequences have to do with the format of your résumé and the content you include. Here are my top five items to address before posting your résumé online and why.
1. Get a unique email address for your résumé. Why? Because you do not want your primary email account tied up with the responses or the spam spiders out looking for new email addresses. You can get additional email accounts from your current service provider or online for free most of the time. Believe me, if you do nothing else, get a different email account; and you may even consider getting a different account for each type of career you are searching for.
2. Include a professional summary at the beginning of your résumé; the statement is about your qualifications and accreditations to date. This summary should be well thought out and only be two to three sentences in length. Why? In this summary you want to target the career specific key words appropriate for the job you are seeking.
3. Do not embellish or inflate the content included in your résumé. Be accurate and concise. Why? Simply, you do not need to; just be yourself and promote the qualities and qualifications you have. Also, you can be inundated with potential jobs that you may not be qualified for but have to sift through anyway. The résumé is a first step in introducing and promoting yourself; do not jeopardize a great job because you fibbed a little...you will get trapped eventually.
4. Make sure the last page of your résumé includes an additional 5 to 10 key words; hide the viewable color by changing the text to white (so these are not printed out). Why? The search engine spiders will find these key words, but they will not show up the print copy.
5. Keep the content specific to the career or job you are seeking. Why? The effort to sift through the jobs takes time, and you want to utilize this time wisely. I suggest if there are crossover jobs, you use separate résumés for each and set up different email accounts to keep you organized.
One final piece of data you should be aware of, only 20% of people actually find a job via the Internet. Guess how the other 80% got their job? Through personal and professional networking! Think about it, the human resource person may get up to a hundred résumés a day for Internet posting; would it not be better to have someone on the inside that allowed your résumé to be reviewed by the hiring manager and let them consider your qualifications first! Good luck and keep up the positive attitude on your path to success.
Copyright: Copyright © 2006-2008 Kent Jacobson a.k.a. Mr. Success
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