Keyword Doors

Posts Tagged ‘Search Resumes’

So much of todayâ??s job search information is like Mac & Cheese. Itâ??s comfort food. Itâ??s not very excellent for you, but itâ??s comfortableâ?¦it makes you feel excellent.

Like Mac & Cheese, this information is very well loved â?? you see it everywhere. Just as Mac & Cheese isnâ??t an efficient food source, this information wonâ??t make your job search efficient. But it WILL make you feel excellent, like youâ??re responsibility the right thing, because you see this information everywhere.

So how can you tell what information is Mac & Cheese? Examples of job search comfort food are cover letters. Reckon of how many articles you see, and how much information a candidate receives about how to write a perfect cover letter. Itâ??s comfortable information that weâ??ve heard since we were originally taught to type themâ?¦on typewriters.

But cover letters just donâ??t work today. At best, cover letters are an obsolete tradition. But cover letters can work against a candidate, providing much more of a disadvantage over any potential advantage.

Hereâ??s why cover letters are like Mac & Cheese:

1. Hiring Managers ordinarily donâ??t get cover letters. I talk to 60 executives per month, and each one tells me how they hire candidates. About 75% of the time, hiring managers tell me they donâ??t even get cover letters from HR departments or recruiters. Recruiters and HR departments often donâ??t see cover letters, even though they are questioned for within the ads they place.

2. Hiring Managers only see about a dozen resumes per position, out of thousands of applicants. HR departments and recruiters use databases to pre-screen resumes. These systems, called Applicant Tracking Systems, search resumes by keywords, allowing the HR screener or recruiter to pick the resumes that best match the keywords being searchedâ?¦just like we do every day on Google. Most Applicant Tracking Systems donâ??t keyword search cover letters, only resumes.

Most candidates sent the same static resume to the jobs they apply to, hoping that the words in their resume happen to magically match the words being searched for. The odds are lousy.

3. Itâ??s a published statistic that most hiring managers make an interview/non interview choice in an mean 15 seconds. In 15 seconds you canâ??t read both a resume and cover letter. Which do you reckon most hiring managers read first?
Iâ??m running a poll currently on Linkedin, asking hiring managers which they read firstâ?¦75% read the resume first. Subjective evidence I hear each month puts that percentage at 90% who read the resume first.

Iâ??m currently running another poll on Linkedin, asking candidates if they send a cover letter, or include a modified resumeâ?¦over 85% send a cover letter and most customize the cover letter. Just 6% send a modified resume.

Isnâ??t that gap eye opening? 85% place their customization into a document thatâ??s rarely seen.

4. I hear subjective evidence from hiring managers about the impact of cover letters if they get them and if they read them. Iâ??ve rarely heard of an instance that a cover letter will talk a hiring manager into an interview, if the resume doesnâ??t first clearly demonstrate they meet the key hiring criteria. On the other hand, I hear tales all the time from hiring managers who recall times that a cover letter that gave additional information talked the candidate out of an interviewâ?¦because they revealed information that was inconsistent with the hiring managerâ??s needs, or made mistakes on the cover letter.

As digital resumes exploded the competition that candidates face, and flooded HR departments/recruiters, these groups developed process improvements that reward candidates who heavily customize their resumesâ?¦and penalize candidates who donâ??t or who customize a different document.

Other Mac & Cheese examples are generalist resumes, broad opening summaries, lack of clarity of what a candidate is looking for and why theyâ??re the best choice.
So what are you buying in your job search? Mac & Cheese? Or Smart Food?

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• ISBN13: 9781570231957
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Product Description
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Best KeyWords for Resumes, Cover Letters, and Interviews: Powerful Communication Tools for Success