Win More Job Interviews by Using Stronger Keywords In Your Next Resume Cover Letter

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resume cover letter



It's
widely accepted by recruitment professionals that increasingly higher
competition among today's job seekers is making it harder for many
applicants to successfully obtain interviews for positions in the
organizations they wish to join.

In order to overcome this
situation, the successful job seeker is learning more and more to use
power words to help stand out from crowd in this increasingly
competitive job market.

Even a few years ago, you probably would not have heard of the term keywords in the context of cover letters for resumes.

But,
given the increased use of technology in screening the thousands of
applicants applying for positions in Fortune 500 organizations, they
have started to impact individuals and related industries in a big way.

But
keywords, those hot words that are associated with special industries
or job positions, are an important way that a job seeker can
differentiate him or herself from the competition of other job seekers.
They are important because they can mean far more than the more two or
three words convey by themselves.

Jay Block, an executive career
coach in West Palm Beach, Fla., commented that if the ad says
candidates need to have a bachelor's degree, "bachelor's degree" had
better show up somewhere in your resume.

He also commented that
job hunters need to look at ads for similar jobs from other companies.
It's important to recognize that each specific industry has its own
inside "speak" or jargon, and knowing what specific words are important
in the range of ads about certain job positions will help you spot the
pattern of words that employers are continually using. Once you spot
the pattern, a good tactic is to start using them yourself in you own
resume cover letters and correspondence relating to getting an
interview for a new position.

It's important to understand that
some keywords are the real ones that you need to take notice off.
Although many keywords are industry specific, Mr. Block says, certain
phrases are common among all organizations. These words continue to
have favor today and they include "communication skills,"
"problem-solving," "team work," "leadership," "resource optimization,"
and "image and reputation management." The reason is that they relate
to universal skills that are in hot demand by today's employers.

"Business development" might be one of the most important of all, he says.

"I've
interviewed many, many companies that will tell me, ‘Everybody from the
floor sweeper to the national sales manager had better be involved in
business development in some way,' " says Mr. Block.

Keywords
are something that have been used by most people though their working
lives - even if they don't realize it at the time. They can be defined
as simply the hot buzz words of a particular trade or profession. They
clearly communicate something specific about the particular job
function, qualification or specialist experience.

Some examples
of these include increased market penetration for marketing personnel,
shared vision for human resources personnel, customer development for
sales staff and systems engineering for Computer IT Specialists.

As
the market place has become increasingly competitive for job seekers ,
you will need to catch your potential employer's attention by writing
action driven statements that explain what value you can provide your
prospective employer. Strong keywords are nouns that allow you to get
the message across more successfully than most other means. They allow
you to showcase your qualifications, capabilities and what you can
offer the employer. Moreover, they are very hard to pass over so they
tend not to be ignored.

It's a well known fact in recruiting
circles that keywords are a really effective way of enhancing your
resume cover letters, broadcast letters and other styles of
correspondence that you use to win job interviews. Strong keywords make
a dramatic improvement to your presentation that should showcase
achievements, qualifications and experiences that support your
successes throughout your working career.

You might substitute,
for example, revenue growth for bottom line improvement or efficiency
and improvement for cost reduction and avoidance.

The potential
list of keywords that can be used to create a professional image is
very large and the more that you think of them, the easier it will be
to incorporate them into your resume cover letters, resumes, thank you
letters and other job search activities.

So, after you have
worked thorough a listing of your "professional keywords", you need to
closely marry them to your background and simply drop the weaker terms.
The most important part of the process is to make sure that these
keywords are relevant to your profession. Use of in-appropriate
keywords, or overuse of them, could also weaken your resume cover
letter so it is important not to go overboard.

If you start
researching the most powerful keywords for your profession, you will
get the added advantage of educating yourself about the skills,
qualifications and experience that is demanded by today's employers in
your particular field.

So, if you need to move away from your
core area of experience and branch into a different job field one day,
you will be well served by researching the right keywords to help you
familiarize yourself with this new area and what is required by the
candidate for the particular position. 


 

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Dan DeMaioNewton
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