The Job Market – Google-ize your job hunt
Job and Career Articles – Jobnet Magazine – India
Google-ize your job hunt
It’s getting more and more competitive – the job market, that is. And, innovation is the name of the game.
All over the world, professionals are putting their resumes online, so that it is more easily accessible by consultants as well as HR departments. Even though the concept is relatively new in India, it’s an innovation you should consider very actively. Imagine – if you want a consultant to access your resume, you just tell him to download it from the internet.
If you feel it is worthwhile, you should design your resume to meet the needs of the Web search engines because recruiters DO search the Web for resumes (it’s free vs. paid job sites), and, in some ways, it’s more effective for them than posting a job opportunity.
If you decide to go online, design a personal resume Web page, go first class, and register a domain name for yourself. They are inexpensive (a domain registration costs only Rs.400/- these days), and usually give you much better search engine positioning than a free site which will have a complicated URL (e.g. www.bigISP.com/~users/yournaume.html.).
Register [yourname].com, [yourname].net, or [your name]-resume.com.
Search Engine Optimisation
When Webmasters design a Web site to be found by the search engines, they call the process “search engine optimization.” Appropriate placement of the “right” words is critical to search engine placement.
Those words are called “keywords.” They are the words searchers type into search engines to find want they want.
What are Key Words?
Keywords are the jargon or “buzzwords” used by insiders in a profession or industry. It’s how insiders describe themselves and others in their profession. These are the terms they give to the people writing job descriptions as the job requirements.
Keywords are the nouns and noun phrases used by recruiters searching through applicant databases and Web job sites for resumes meeting the requirements on job descriptions. In case you’ve forgotten 8th class English, nouns are the words that represent a person, place, or thing.
["Assistant" and "manager" are nouns. "Administrative assistant" and "marketing manager" are noun phrases.]
Key words are relatively new requirement. This requirement developed when employers and agencies began storing resumes in applicant databases. Then, Web job sites started appearing in 1994, and keywords became more important. In the past, we focused on “action verbs” in our resumes – for example: “Managed a P&L…” or “Created and implemented a
marketing campaign…” And, they are still very important because they explain what you did and are capable of doing for an employer.
Of course, in cyberspace, you need more than action verbs. You need the right words, or key words, used by someone searching a resume database for qualified applicants.
So, think of the education and experience you have had and the job you want, and brainstorm the nouns and noun phrases that would be used in the description of the requirements of that job, using the suggestions in the section below. Look through the job postings you find for the skills, experience, professional certifications or organizaitons, etc. that will tell you what keywords will be used. If you can, get a copy of the job description for the job you want, and pick out the noun and noun
phrases used. As appropriate (you have the skills, education, etc.), add those words and phrases to your resume when you apply for that job.
Developing Your Keywords
When developing your list of job-related keywords, be creative, but not inaccurate. Make a list of the following (ask your friends, family, and co-workers for help):
* Standard job titles that are used for your current and previous jobs, particularly if current (or former) employer(s) used non-standard titles
* Names of job-specific, profession-specific, and industry-specific tools that you use or are qualified to use because of education and/or experience (e.g. MRI images, etc.)
* Software and hardware that you use or have been trained to use, particularly if it’s unique to your job, industry, or profession (e.g. Microsoft Project, SAP, etc.)
* Names of techniques that you use or are qualified to use
* Industry and professional organizations that you have joined (include committee membership or association officer titles, as appropriate)
* Trade shows, and conferences that you have attended and/or where you have presented papers
* Professional and/or technical acronyms – the more; the merrier, as long as they are appropriate to your experience and education
* Classes of employers who offer your services, “national specialty retailers,” for example * Applicable education that you have (degrees, majors, applicable course work, post-graduate courses and certifications, etc.)
* Other jargon (common “insider” words, terms, and acronyms specific to the profession and/or industry) that describe your work, typical products and/or services involved, and the people who do your job
Adding Keywords to Your Resume
* Include both the acronyms and the phrases that explain each of them in the body of your resume. The acronym and the phrase explaining it don’t have to be in the same sentence or paragraph. Just use both versions if you can. It will increase the probability that your resume will appear in the search results whether the recruiter searches on the acronym or
the phrase that it represents.
* Be inconsistent. If you were being judged on your writing skills, this wouldn’t be an advantage. In the resume search-ability game, however, it is an advantage. So, without destroying the meaning of the words on your
resume, be as creatively inconsistent as you can – “M.B.A,” “MBA,” “Master of Business Administration,” “Masters in Bus. Admin,” etc. so your resume will pop up in the results regardless of the exact term used by the recruiter in their search
Put the Word “Resume” on Your Resume.
On the Web, many recruiters search for resumes using the keyword “resume,” so at the top of your resume, type the words “Resume of [your name]” in a line.
Put Keywords in Your Resume’s File Name.
Name your resume’s file something that has both marketing and identification qualities, a combination of keywords and your name, like “IEEE_ravi_resume.html.” Don’t leave blank spaces, or use punctuation other than a hyphen or underscore in the file name to maximize the probability that a computer will read the file name easily.
Optimize the Top of Your Web Page.
Search engines “read” the HTML behind your resume. They don’t look at the pictures or read the text on graphics.
MOST search engines view the text at the top of the page as “important,” so don’t waste it. Put as many keywords there as you can, in an objective and skill summary, perhaps.
Add a section near the top of your resume named “skills” or, even, “keywords,” where you concentrate as many of your key words as possible.
Add “Meta” Tags, if You Want.
They may help with search results placement with some search engines, but they don’t help as much as they did a couple of years ago. If you have the time and inclination, you can add these “invisible” collection of relevant keywords to your resume’s HTML file. If you are using Front Page, Meta Tags can be added by clicking ‘Page Properties’.
Register Your Personal Resume Web Page.
If you go to the effort to transform your resume into a Web page, register it with the search engines like Google and Yahoo. Registration is free, and makes searching your resume relatively easier once your site has been indexed.
It’s not that you are guaranteed a job, but it’s adding another string to you bow – who knows?
Some of the ways that Google can help you in your jobsearch
Searching the Web
* Use several different variations of your search terms to find the terms that return the best search results. Try searching with standard abbreviations as well as complete words (e.g. telecom and telecommunications). Test both plural and singular (job vs. jobs)
* Change the order of the search terms used. Searching on jobs delhi gives you different search results than delhi jobs.
* Enclose phrases inside quotation marks (e.g. “entry level jobs”), and Google will look for that exact phrase rather than Web pages that contain all of the words at random.
Excluding some results
If your Google search results have some entries mixed in that have nothing to do with what you are seeking, you can exclude many extraneous entries by excluding words used commonly on those pages you want to avoid. You can modify your search criterion by excluding words that may appear on pages you do not want by attaching a minus sign (-) before the
word in your search parameter.
Similar Pages
Most Google search results entries also contain a link to “Similar Pages.” Clicking on that link usually provides you with – surprise – similar Web sites.
The Google Phone Directory
Type the phone number, with Area Code, into the Google search bar, and hit the Return key. The Google results will provide the address and name associated with the phone number unless it’s a new or unlisted phone number. This is called “Reverse Lookup.”
The Google Dictionary
Is there a term in a job description or on the company’s Web site that you don’t understand? Type that word (or phrase) into Google’s search window (or the Google Toolbar).
Google’s search results page will print the search terms in the blue bar ABOVE the list of Web sites results. Click on the word (it will be bolded and underlined), and Google will take you to a page with definitions of the word.
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