When submitting your resume for employment, whether with a big corporation or a personnel search firm, the chances are growing that scanning technology will be used to read it. The technology responsible for computer readable resumes operates on the principle of labeling. At the center of the technology are keywords. Call them buzzwords. Call them descriptors. Call them skill words, or job words. Call them whatever you like.

A sample job order might require:

Five years’ experience as a salesperson
College graduate
A direct marketer to ethnic communities
Heavy traveler
Self-starter
Team leader

Supplied with these specifications, a computer checks a database for resumes that include these keywords. The secret is to fill your resume with as many labels as possible.

The ultimate keywords come from each employer for each position. You can only make reasonable assumptions about what a specific employer will ask for. You will need to maintain a log of keywords that apply to your occupation and industry. Jot down the words as you come across them in trade magazines, class notes, newspaper ads, etc.

Sampling of Keywords
Advertising/Communications
Booth Development
Image Campaign
Promotional Materials
Sales Promotion
Cable Television

Civil Engineer
ASCE
Concrete Design
Preliminary Stress Analysis
Hydrology Trans Analysis

Computer Specialist
Analog Computer
Compaq
Mainframes
Unix

Real Estate Agent
Asset Management
Commercial Leasing
Real Estate Appraisal Banker
RTC
ATM
Bank Reconciliation
Commercial Loan Operations
Customer Conversion

Compensation Specialist
Equity Review
Incentive Plan
Job Classification
Salary Structure

Economist
Economic Forecast
Industrial Policy
Minority Economic Impact

Statistician
Biostatistics
Standard Deviation
Stat Regression

Polishing Your Keyword Skills

Looking up information in the Yellow Pages or a library file uses the same skill necessary to write good keywords. Choose nouns that indicate your accomplishments rather than verbs that focus on duties.

Even a resume with very strong content, one which includes all of the keywords that describe your occupational credentials, can be overlooked. Consequently, the keywords in an electronic resume should be organized into two sections. The first is a Keyword Preface; the second is the main body of the resume.

The Keyword Preface or Summary appears directly beneath your name and contact information at the top of your resume. It is an inventory of your most important assets. It runs about 20 to 30 items and each item is capitalized and ends with a period. Cover three points in selecting your items:

Your skills, abilities and competencies;
Your experience using those skills, abilities and competencies; and
Your accomplishments in using those skills, abilities and competencies on-the-job.
A keyword summary for a programmer/analyst might include the following: Oracle, Visual Basic, C++.

Marilyn Moats Kennedy, an author of career planning books and managing partner at Career Strategies, says: “It is important to alter your resume to fit a particular job. One of the biggest mistakes people make is that they do not pick up on the keywords in job postings and advertisements and include them in their resumes.” Also, electronically transmitted cover letters should include keywords.

Checklist for Scanner-Friendly Resumes

Choose the most likely keywords and arrange them in order of importance.
Choose the correct typefaces. To play it safe, stick to sans serif fonts like Helvetica.
Use font size between 10 and 14 points.
Avoid italics, script, and underlined passages.
Avoid graphics and gray screens (shading).
Use horizontal and vertical lines sparingly and allow 1/4" of white space around them. Omit parentheses and brackets.
Use a 24-pin letter-quality or laser printer.
Use 8 1/2" x 11" white paper printed on one side only.
Avoid a four-page resume on a folded 11" x 17" sheet.
Put name at the top of the page and address and phone number below, each on its own line; put name on top of page two.
Avoid stapling or folding resume. Send it flat in a large envelope.
Avoid two-column format or resumes that look like newspapers or newsletters.
Don’t condense spacing between letters.
The best paper weight for an electronic resume is copy grade (20 lb.) or slightly heavier, such as offset printing grade (60 lb.).
Boldface is accepted by most systems, unless instructed by an employer to avoid. Capital letters can be substituted.
When faxing your resume, set the fax machine on “fine mode,” rather than “standard mode.”

Written by Roseanne Lidle Bensley, Placement and Career Services, New Mexico State University.

Portions of this article are adapted from The Electronic Resume Revolution by Joyce Lain Kennedy and Thomas J. Morrow, © 1994, John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Publishers.

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