♪ [music] ♪ This lesson will focus on how to write or rewrite your resume to get past those automated resume screeners that you've probably heard about. We have other lessons on how to format your resume and how to write persuasively for those important human readers. But, before your resume gets to a human gatekeeper, it has to get past the robots. ♪ [music] ♪ First, an overview of what I'm talking about when I say, robots. It's definitely not as cool as it sounds. Most big companies use a resume screening software, also commonly known as ATS, or applicant tracking system. Why do they do this? To save time for everybody. For each posted position, a company is likely to get hundreds of resumes. Unfortunately, many of these resumes are from people who are not remotely qualified for the position. Many applicants apply indiscriminately for every position that looks interesting. It's a waste of time to review all of these irrelevant resumes, especially when a robot could be doing it. Enter the ATS. The ATS can automatically narrow the incoming resumes down to those from applicants most qualified for the job. How do they do this? For each open position, someone at the company will choose certain keywords to be used in automatically scoring resumes that come in. Keywords can be related to education, experience, skills, and competencies. The ATS system then scans all incoming resumes, flags them for the desired keywords and keyword phrases, and then scores each resume's match with the desired keywords. The highest scoring resumes move on to a human reviewer. The lowest scoring resumes go to the virtual dumpster. That means your resume has to include certain keywords or phrases just to make it to a real person for review. Now, these automated screeners aren't perfect. They need to be programmed well to do a good job, but keep in mind that human gatekeepers will also be scanning for certain keywords and phrases while simultaneously looking for any potential red flags, like gaps or short tenures. So, using the right keywords in your resume matters in multiple ways. The biggest challenge is that you'll need to strike a balance between including enough of the right keywords and keeping your resume engaging on a human level. If your resume turns into little more than a laundry list of keyword phrases, you might make it past the initial screening, but you'll have trouble getting much further. ♪ [music] ♪ First, let's address how to select the right keywords, then we can talk about how to incorporate them into your resume effectively. For best results, I strongly recommend that you customize your resume for each position you apply for. This will help you with both the robots and the humans. Yes, it's more work than just blasting out a generic resume for every opportunity, but it's also much more likely to yield results. If you're mostly applying to similar roles, you won't need to customize too much. For example, if you're looking at residential real estate broker positions, most of them will probably be looking for similar experience and skill sets. However, if you're exploring some different directions or you happen to be in a career space in which roles can vary dramatically by company, you will need to do more work on customizing. When you're looking at more senior-level roles, you definitely need to customize. These roles can vary greatly in terms of which competencies or aspects of leadership are most prized. ♪ [music] ♪ Customizing basically means analyzing each job description, and then editing your resume to ensure it includes the right keywords for the job. The job description will tell you a lot about what the company thinks is most important for the role. You're looking for the job requirements and responsibilities that are most emphasized in the job description. Start with any required skills or education or training. Many companies sort out the resumes that don't mention a critical skill, such as a key programming language or a specific certification, or don't clearly indicate the required educational qualifications. For example, a master's degree or a certain major. Then, look for areas of experience and competencies that are highly emphasized. This includes industry lingo and specific phrasing used in the job description. For example, a job description for a Data Scientist might specifically require a degree in computer science and specific knowledge of SQL, Java, Python, and R. Make sure these keywords are in your resume. Then, let's say the job duties heavily emphasize data science, machine learning, statistical modeling, analysis, visualization, and reporting, these should be optimized for as well. Finally, let's say the job description also talks a lot about leadership, problem solving, and initiative, these terms should also show up in your resume. Now, I hope this goes without saying, but it's never a good idea to be deceptive and include keywords for experience you don't have. You will almost certainly get busted in the human review or the interview. Keep in mind that the ATS is looking for exact matches, so you want to be careful to customize for the right phrasing. For example, an ATS scanning for CRM software won't know to give you points for Salesforce, one of the top CRM tools. And even though CRM is short for customer relationship management, an ATS might be looking for one or the other. This is why it's useful to use the exact keywords that are in the job description. If they keep talking about technical project management, use that phrase instead of plain old project management. If this sounds really nitpicky, that's because it is. The goal is to screen out as many as possible so that the human gatekeeper doesn't waste time reviewing irrelevant resumes. Even the best ATS with the best screening criteria makes mistakes and passes over great candidates, but you can gain the system with a bit of thoughtful customizing. ♪ [music] ♪ Once you've identified the best keywords for a particular opportunity, where do you incorporate them into your resume? Your resume summary statement is a great place to add keywords. It's your first impression on paper. If you're not familiar with the resume summary statement or need help writing a great one, please see our lesson devoted to this subject. You can create a version of the summary statement for your general go-to resume, and then swap out or reorder bullet points for different roles. For example, maybe you didn't mention your writing skills in the summary, but now you're applying for a position that emphasizes writing. Maybe your'e exploring roles in an adjacent industry. You can customize your summary statement to clearly indicate your interest in the new industry and better emphasize transferrable skills. You can also incorporate a list of skills in your summary statement, and then make sure you're representing the right required skills for each job. Beyond the summary statement, you can also add keywords within the position descriptions. These are the bullet points that describe what you did in each past role. You can customize these to include the right industry terms and specific wording for your duties and strengths. For example, you might say social media engagement instead of Facebook marketing, to align with the company's wording. In the education area, be sure to match the job post requirements as best you can. You might include Masters of Business Administration, with M.B.A. in parentheses, to account for matching with the full term or the abbreviation. Now, it's possible to go too crazy incorporating every keyword. Be careful that you don't dilute your message by turning your resume into an endless keyword cloud without context. Good writing and context still count a lot when you get to that human reviewer. The robots are not going to decide who to call in for an interview. So, before you finalize that resume, please be sure to check out our other lessons on persuasive resume writing. Good luck.
