There’s nothing quite like waking up in the morning knowing that you’ll be spending the day doing something you love. (I know all about that!) Working at an enjoyable job that you excel in adds an extra bounce to your step and significant joy to life. Triple that when you have a great boss, great workmates and a great salary. But how do you land that job you dream of? Whether your ideal position involves personal meetings with high-profile clients, working with children or cooking up delicious food inside the steaming kitchen of a fastpaced restaurant, securing your desired job always starts at the same point. It all begins with the resume.
Why a Resume Matters Too often it happens that highly qualified and talented people never even manage to get an interview after sending in their resumes. They might chalk it up to an overloaded pool of applicants or bad mazel and even begin to doubt their ability and self-worth. But the truth is that many times these applicants would be hired on the spot if only they’d make it past the initial entrance exam: the reading of the resume. This document is the golden key capable of opening sealed doors. In short, it is the summation of every valuable quality you have to offer an employer. Few people, however, take the time to draft a solid resume, not realizing that it could be mean the difference between the coveted face-to-face interview or spending another day staring at the classified ads. Creating a resume is a combination of art and science,
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with beauty, simplicity and knowhow forming the foundation of the entire document. In fact, resume writing is a field of its own, with knowledgeable resume writers sometimes charging upwards of $1,200. Of course, with the proper investment of time and care, it is possible to create your own winning resume. Before you run for pen and paper, though, let’s discuss what makes resume writers even think of asking such “outrageous” sums. Perhaps, after learning what it takes to draft the perfect document, you won’t find those prices so outlandish…
The Keyword System Most resumes are scanned in under 20 seconds. And that’s if they’ve earned the
privilege of even being seen. In our generation, most large companies and even many small businesses have now turned to computerized systems for finding potential employees. These systems utilize a database based on certain keywords that the employer is expecting to see from applicants. After all the resumes are in, a button is pushed and walla! The resumes with the greatest density in keywords come to the top of the list, and the rest? Well, they just fade away into oblivion... Let’s say that Sara Russell (a fictitious person) sent in her resume for a teaching position at a large, wellestablished, up-to-date school that sees many applicants every year. To make the hiring job easier by zooming in on the best candidates, the school invested in one of these keyword programs. Over five hundred applications were received, loaded into the system and examined by the computer program.