How to Keyword Optimize your Resume for ATS Compliance

Start off your new job search the right way with a brand New Resume that outlines your work experience and skills to get excellent work opportunities at Top Companies that are actively looking for candidates with your skills.

1. Contact Information and Job Title

Start with a fresh new look by adding a pop of color blue is always a great color that stands out really nicely. You want to really utilize the entire 1-2 pages of your resume and maximize the use of that prime real estate at the top of your document. Begin with your Full Name and Contact Information: City/State, Phone, Email, LinkedIn, Website, GitHub, Portfolio Links etc. Below your name should be your professional job title this will help to inform the recruiter of who you are, what type of professional you are, your area of expertise knowledge and which hiring manager or department they need to forward your information over to. This really helps to expedite the process for so many recruiters in 5 seconds they are quickly glance your resume and know whether your qualified for that role or not.

2. Professional Summary

So after we learned who you are, where you live and what roles your interested in we want to now know what type of professional you are, your years of experiences, highlights of projects, products or services that you have managed or contributed to in 3-5 high impact sentences. Provide a brief overview of some of the technical details about the work that you have done and the teams you've worked with. As well as any significant awards, achievements and recognition. These are some of the great details that make up a great summary. This summary will help the reader to quickly assess your level of Subject Matter Expertise in the industries that you have worked in highlighting your strengths and achievements. If there was ever a time to brag on yourself this would be it, this is your Elevator Pitch and Introduction if someone was reading this summary to an audience to introduce you to give a speech what would it sound like and what relevant information would need to be provided in your summary.

3. Areas of Expertise, Core Competencies & Keywords

Perhaps one of the most important sections on a resume is the trifecta your Areas of Expertise, Core Competencies and Keywords. Adding all that information in this section will instantly 10X your keywords and optimize your resume so when the Applicant Tracking Software Systems scan your document you will be more likely to go straight to the top of the list for qualified candidates. When you maximize your keywords by adding more to this section your instantly informing the Recruiter and Hiring Manager that you have the ability to understand these specific domains and will be able to bring these skills to their teams. This also helps them to understand areas that you might need to improve on and where your learning curve will be. Candidates are 2X more likely to hear back from recruiters when they add high impact keywords for their industry.

4. Professional Experiences

Your professional experiences should always be listed with your most recent experience first then everything else after. Be sure to include the company's name, your title, city/state, month and year from the time to started to present or when the role ended.

Provide a brief overview of what the company and your department specifically does adding quantifiable data about any products, services, customers, locations and revenue that might be important for the reader to be aware of and how you contribute to the overall success of the company within your role. With this format your information should essentially read like a story informing the read of what your managed, supervised, lead, built, designed, developed, engineered, planned, trained, contributed, collaborated, or worked on these words help to indicate what key roles you held on that team and how you delivered those specific services. You can utilize 6 more or less bullet points that can be structured in a way that provides the most significant information : what did you make, saved, or achieved for the company?

You can also utilize the STAR Method to structure your sentences:

Situation What was the problem you were solving or product/project/service you worked on?

Task What were you specifically tasked with doing?

Action How did you actually do it the steps, technical information, any software or hardware that you use and quantifiable data?

Results Any outcomes, results achievements and successes?

This method will help to guide you thinking about what information you will need to provide about the work that you have done and the details.

5. Education

List your education history showing what schools, institutions and programs you attended for degrees, certifications and courses that you have or are currently completing. Include the name of the school or program, city.state and dates attended.

6. Awards & Achievements

List out any significant awards, certificates or notable achievements from employers, schools or organizations.

7. Technical Skills

A section that is oftentimes overlooked and neglected by many candidates. So what do recruiters want to know about your technical skills, your level of proficiency

Additional Tips:

Always check your font size, spelling, grammar, sentence structures etc. Be sure to remove any outdated or irrelevant/unnecessary information to reflect a current, modern and active work history showing your professional progression.

Using the right keywords can actually get you a job much faster so don't under estimate the power of those high impact keywords, a good job title and quantifiable numerical details.

Your Social Media presence is more important than ever so make sure that you do a self audit of all your information and that you are presenting your best self across all platforms as recruiters will be looking at everything at you do online. LinkedIn has quickly become an employers playground to recruit, screen and assess candidates for employment. They can instantly view and match your profile to any role that you may qualify for within their company so add those keywords to your profile. Employers also utilize other social media outlets like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Youtube, Clubhouse and more to make sure that your professional image aligns well with your social public image and the company's public image as well. An active online presence speaks volumes to potential employers, that you can be seen and heard in the right way.

If you need assistance with a full Resume and LinkedIn Profile Review, Audit, Consultation, Rewrite or total makeover and transformation please email us at info@circleofopportunities.com and schedule and book an appointment at www.calendly.com/jointhecircle