It’s a new year and it’s time to revive your job search efforts and results. Competition may be fierce, but your resume can stand out from the crowd by taking a few tips to help employers quickly and clearly see why you are talent they want to talk to. Related:4 Things You Must Have In Your Resume Profile Consider the following to help your resume get noticed:
1. Increase your ranking on Applicant Tracking Systems.
When you’re applying through job boards or the employer’s website, there’s a good chance your resume is going through an Applicant Tracking System. Employers use it to filter out the most relevant job applicants based on key word match relevancy. Making the cut is not easy. Under a typical scenario, there may be 400 resumes, but only the top 20 ranked resumes get reviewed. To make the cut, make sure the skills and qualifications in the job posting are in your resume.2. Send it to the hiring manager.
Go to LinkedIn and identify the hiring manager, or if you cannot find them, then get the HR manager. Then send the resume on good paper in an 8x10 envelope directly to them, with a handwritten address to make it look personal. Since they will be inclined to just push this into the Applicant Tracking System, you need to make it stand out right up front. A great direct mail trick is to put a post-it on it with a hand-written message. If you know someone in the company, then this can be: “Jay said you would want to see this.” Otherwise something generic like “Thought you would want to see this." This is especially good for sales and marketing people whose goal is to get noticed. Important: Make sure that your resume passes the quick glance test and you have a compelling Profile.3. Put in a call.
Many job applicants approach job searching reactively. They submit their resume and wait for the call, but to get noticed, it pays to be aggressive. Wait 2-3 days after submission to call. Important: You’re not calling to ask, “Did you get my resume?” People hire people they like, so your goal is to build rapport with the right contact, asking the right questions and demonstrating you have the experiences and skills they are looking for. For example, for a marketing position, you’d call the right contact and say something to the effect of, “I know the company has several products in the pipeline scheduled for launch this year. Are they launching in the Asian and European market simultaneously?” From there, you can casually mention you’ve worked in both markets launching XYZ for ABC Company and inform them you are interested in the position. If you’ve established a friendly conversation with the contact, you’ve just earned your chance to get your resume in front of the right people. Get your resume noticed with these three tips.Related Posts
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