9 Resume Strategies To Increase Your Starting Salary

There is an unspoken way to get a higher salary offer, as a PhD transitioning into industry.

And it all has to do with your resume.

It's a strategy that employers not want PhDs to know because they think they can low ball you in terms of the salary offer they're giving you.

They think you're just an academic.

They think you don't know any better.

Here are 9 resume strategies that will help you get an offer 10 to 20% higher than if you didn't apply these shortcuts...

1. Include location keywords on your resume.

A lot of PhDs don't understand that an employer, especially, a hiring manager, or somebody in HR who doesn't have a PhD, are tasked to fill a job in a certain location.

Let's say a job's in Chicago, or Sydney, or London.

Where do you think they're gonna look when they're trying to hire somebody in that location?

People that live in London, currently, or Chicago, currently.

They will search their applicant tracking system for resumes that contain the location where the job is.

You think that by not putting a location, you're opening yourself up to more job opportunities.

You're not.

You have to put locations on your resume.

You can put in two or three different cities, your top ones and if you're willing to relocate, you can put in willing to relocate.

Actually write that on your resume.

Put willing to relocate up at the very top right in your contact details underneath your LinkedIn URL.

Those key words need to be on your resume.

2. Academic job titles hurt you.

As a PhD, you're probably thinking, "Oh, I need to write down "Graduate Research Assistant," or "Postdoctoral Fellow" because that's the official name of my position.

It doesn't matter.

Writing those academic titles is not going to help you.

Most people that don't have PhDs, they don't even understand what a graduate research assistant is.

Applicant Tracking System software, the ATS software, also doesn't care about these academic words.

ATS is the software that's sees your resume, first.

When you upload a resume, it doesn't get right into the hands of a hiring manager, instead it goes into a software program.

Because employers get too many applications to read them all.

The average is for every open position that's available it will get 525 resumes.

Large companies, like Pfizer, Regeneron, MedImmune, Apple, Google will get up to 2,000 resumes per open position.

How are they filtering through all of these resumes: Applicant Tracking System software.

What is that software not programmed to look for: Academic job titles.

Yet you, as a PhD, are putting, "Graduate Research Assistant"or "Postdoctoral Fellow" in bold as a title that really matters, and the ATS software is just throwing out your resume.

Don't do that.

Instead use a functional resume which highlights your relevant skills - not academic job titles.

3. Buzzwords hurt you.

The simplest way for an employer to tell that you're an amateur and that let's them know that they can really drive down the salary they're going offer you, is when they see that you use the word, enthusiastic, 13 times on your resume.

Or you use "team player" because somebody told you that they're worried about PhDs being too independent.

Studies have shown that those two key words, those two buzzwords, in particular, enthusiastic & team player, reduce your chances of getting an interview, and lower the salary you get offered.

There are a lot of buzzwords that you should not be putting on your resume.

4. Use a functional resume.

So if you can't put your academic job titles under your work experience, what do you put?

Skills.

Bold your skills and have those be the top line of each work experience section.

Instead of saying, "Graduate Research Assistant," at "University XYZ," on these dates, highlight a technical skill or a transferable skill.

Put Project Management Skills, and, then, underneath it, put "gained as a Graduate Research Assistant at this university."

This is called a functional resume.

And it's not new.

This is something you can do and it will help you beat the Applicant Tracking System software.

It will show you employers that you understand that skills are important.

It's going to make employers see the skills first, and not judge you as an academic who doesn't know what they're talking about.

It's going to earn you a higher salary offer.

5. The job market favors you.

Right now, unemployment is at its lowest level in 50 years.

Worldwide there are more jobs available, right now, especially, in STEM.

So if you're a life scientist, physical scientist, social scientist, engineer, math, economics, or education PhD now is the time to get hired.

We've seen an increase in hiring by over 200% in the last couple of months.

We just broke our one-week record for the most transitions in the industry, ever.

Problem is you're not trained on getting a job.

You're in academia.

You have some lifetime academic, some career counselor, telling you things that aren't correct for getting an industry job, today.

You're not leveraging modern networks.

You're not leveraging modern technology.

You need to realize that the ball is in your court.

You should be showing up to interviews, phone screens, knowing, "I have plenty of job opportunities because there are tons of job opportunities out there."

You should be submitting a resume with confidence with words and language that show that you're a desirable candidate.

6. You can hack ATS and AI software.

ATS is the software that takes in your resume looks at a bunch of metrics, keywords, desired salary, your cover letter, etc.

It then uses an algorithm to determine whether or not you're a likely positive candidate for that organization.

If the ATS decides you're not a good candidate, it grays your name out.

It archives you.

A person never sees your resume.

Employers have to use these software programs, because otherwise, they'd have to hire hundreds of people just to look at the thousands of resumes coming in all day.

So it's a necessary evil.

Employers want you to be filtered out if you're not a good candidate, or if you're an academic.

Or they want you to have to put in your salary expectations with your resume, so they can use those against you, later.

You can bypass all of this by getting access to a network and then networking with employees working at a company, setting up informational interviews, etc.

You can hack the ATS software to make sure that your resume goes right into the hands of an employer.

How do you do this?

Use a free word cloud to identify keywords you should be using.

Collect 20, 30, 40 different job postings for the jobs you're interested in.

Copy and paste all that content into a word cloud.

The word cloud will tell you which skills are used the most.

Which words are used the most.

Those are the keywords you should be using in your resume, the technical and transferable skills the employers are looking for.

You just hacked the ATS software.

You've hacked the AI.

So your resume will come up at the top of the search results, and will get to an actual person.

7. They stop reading after 10%.

I don't know if employers don't want you to know this because they're lazy, or they don't want you to be trying game the system by getting your resume in first.

But, here's the deal.

If 1,000 resumes are being submitted to a large company for an open position, only about 100 of them are being read by a person.

A lot of smaller companies, they'll only read, 10.

Maybe they get a few hundred resumes that come in.

They'll read 10, maybe 20 resumes.

This is because they stop collecting resumes early.

If a job's been posted for a week, and you send in your resume, it's too late, they're not even going to get to your resume.

They've already collected the resumes that they're going to go through.

And they're going to go through those and find the best one in that pile, that 10%.

This means you have to get your resume in early.

Studies confirm this.

Getting your resume in on Monday really matters, because most people post a new job on Monday.

8. Google alerts beats Indeed.

Many companies have special deals with Indeed or other job search platforms to show their jobs.

They want you to go there to look for those jobs because they're paying Indeed, or they're paying these other job search platforms lots of money to help them find good candidates.

Here's the trick, though.

You don't need to go to Indeed.

What the number one best algorithm is for searching key words..

It's Google.

So why not go to the source?

If you go to google.com/alerts, you can set up an alert for every job title you're interested in.

When you set up these Google alerts, you'll get an email to your inbox that will tell you when a new job is posted.

When any new webpage is posted, with that information on it.

Whatever you put in the Google alert, that will show up in your inbox.

You'll be the first to know when a job opens up and you can be the first to apply to it.

9. Finally, employees have more pull than HR.

Hiring managers and other HR personnel are a bit out of their depth when they're hiring for PhDs.

They're not going to understand your technical skills or the technical skills needed for the position.

Their job is just to screen you to make sure you're personable and that you have the transferable skills the employer wants.

They are not going to have the final say in whether or not you're hired, in most cases.

Who has a lot more pull than a someone in HR, or a recruiter, or a hiring manager?

An employee already working at that company, especially, an employee in the department you want to get into.

If a current employee at that company comes in and says, "This person would be a great hire. You should interview them."

They're gonna interview you.

Vouching for you in that way means a lot.

This is why you have to get access to modern networks.

Use modern technology to build up your network.

And you have to start having informational interviews.

As PhDs, you, probably, have an industry network of zero.

In the Cheeky Scientist Association you get access to thousands of PhDs currently working in industry where you can interview them about their position.

And those informational interviews turn into interviews where they ask you questions.

They take your resume.

They hand your resume to a hiring manager.

They refer you for the job.

That's really where the magic happens in terms of resumes.

Employers don't want you to know about this because you can just bypass their entire system.

Have you been getting too low salary offers?

Is your resume just getting rejected?

Ready to fix your resume, get past screening software, and get a high job offer?

Learn how at our free resume webinar for PhDs, Thursday July 18th at 1:00 pm, Eastern Standard Time. There are limited seats so register here now.