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3 Ways To Optimize Your Resume For Job Search Sites

Emmanuel Nnaemeka
  With the rising rate of unemployment in Nigeria, getting a good job is possible despite the odds. All it takes is to ensure that your curriculum vitae or resume is well optimised. The truth is that an excellent resume can increase your chances of landing a good job. 
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When you sit down to prepare your resume, you’re likely thinking about conveying your job roles, skills, and personal interests to your potential employers. When creating a resume, it enables you to keep the next step in mind: namely, posting your resume on job search sites. These sites streamline the hiring process, serve up thousands of relevant listings, and lead to opportunities that may not have been on your radar. With a high volume of applications coming in every day to sites like Jobberman, Glassdoor,  Career24, and others, how do you make a resume stand out and get noticed? Job search sites and Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) leverage powerful algorithms to sift through all of them. In this article, I am going to show you how to optimise your resume to increase your chances of landing a job of your choice. 
  1. Optimize With Keywords And Phrases.
The secret to landing the right job is the optimisation of keywords and phrases. This is because job search sites capitalise on search queries to find a match.  For example, if you observe common phrases of word structures in similar job listings, it is advisable to apply the same verbs, phrases and keywords when structuring your resume. In other words, it implies using related language to the job description to catch the attention of the algorithm and recruiters. Even job titles differ across companies. By generalizing your job title to something more common, you’re making it easier for the Applicant Tracking System and reviewers to recognize how suitable your experience is for a certain position.
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  1. Streamline The Formatting.
Streamlining in this sense means simplifying the fonts and colours and other additives to your resume without making it either too exotic or complex. If you want to land a job without so much hassle, upload your resume to a job site only to fill in the specific information in the application. The option is that the job site pulls the information directly from your resume into the application, but the correct fields don’t always populate. This is because images, fancy fonts and colours can confuse the algorithm. As amazing as a unique resume is for humans, try to stick with easy-to-read fonts like Arial, Georgia, Helvetica, or Times New Roman when uploading to a job search site.
  1. Quantify Your Accomplishments.
When preparing your resume, emphasize the results of your achievements to illustrate your value to your recruiters. Be as specific as possible. Measurable success is an incredible way to illustrate how you’ve impacted previous roles and how you may perform in your next position.  In addition to possessing an amazing resume, once you get rolling in the hiring process, you’ll also want to underscore other areas recruiters may be interested in. Consider giving your LinkedIn profile and even your portfolio or website a makeover with these optimization tips. Once your resume is modified for job sites, it’s time to get yourself out there. Job search sites allow you to cast a wide net and let you filter job listings based on what you’re looking for. Jobberman is a free and popular choice among job seekers and recruiters.  Featured image source: Forbes
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