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Customizing your resume to match each job opportunity will result in more interviews and offers. But is the potential return worth the time investment? By utilizing a few resources and creating an experience inventory, resume customization can be as easy as "research," "edit" and "submit."
Instead of building your resume from scratch before each job application, create a warehouse of personal information so you can peruse your choices, make appropriate selections, and paste the information into the resume after you've read the job description and researched the company.
- Keyword Buckets: Candidates are initially screened by how closely the keywords in their resume match the keywords in the job description. Keywords include job titles, hard and soft skills and industry buzzwords. Read several job descriptions for each position and industry you're pursuing. Then create keyword buckets which can be copied into your resume to correspond with each opportunity.
- Experience Buckets: Create an inventory of your previous achievements by company and position. Then explain how you attained each one through accomplishment statements which illustrate how you applied your knowledge, skills, experience and competencies (be sure to include keywords). Customization is faster when you copy and paste your experience, allowing more time for research and the strategic alignment of your background with the opportunity.
- Objective and Summary Statements: Write experience summaries for the jobs and industries that interest you. Sell yourself to the reviewer by emphasizing opportunity-specific experience, skills and traits.
Customize on the Fly
After you've made it through the keyword screen, a genuine human will determine whether you'll interview for the position. Since most candidates have plenty of experience and success, deciding which experiences to include or exclude is critical.
Since most candidates vie for a few positions, they often create a version of their resume tailored toward each role. But you can take customization to the next level by making simple adjustments on the fly and emphasizing different experiences to reviewers.
Tailor your accomplishments to fit the company's environment and needs by selecting appropriate examples. For instance, highlight your innovative creativity when applying at entrepreneurial firms, and provide examples of your process-driven experience and compliance aptitude for highly structured environments.
"Moving bullets is a simple way to customize a resume," says Susan Ireland, a resume expert and author based in California. "For example, a programmer applying for a tech writing job may want to move up the bullets describing their documentation experience, since that's a top requirement."
Resources
These resources may help you simplify the inventory and resume writing process.
- Resume Help: DoD Transportal is the web portal for military transitioners
- Occupational Sites: Occupational Web sites like O'Net OnLine provide job seekers with keywords and well-crafted examples of experience and skill requirements for thousands of jobs.
- Action Verb Lists: Search the Internet for free lists of industry buzzwords for your keyword buckets and resume action verbs to begin accomplishment statements. Lists are available on a number of University career sites.
Leslie Stevens-Huffman is a writer in California.
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