ROMANCING THE BOT

How to Use Resume SEO and Have The Job You Want Find YOU!

It’s not uncommon for recruiters and hiring managers to receive hundreds of applications for a single job. In this age of the internet, applicants have their resumes stored in the cloud and whenever they see an interesting employment opportunity, with a few clicks of the mouse they can apply. Many of these applicants are not qualified for the position they seek but operate on the theory of nothing ventured nothing gained and they hope to slide into the pile of resumes and set for the interview. 

Skynet and the Mind Police have Arrived

The rise of AI (Artificial Intelligence) and ATS (Applicant Tracking Systems) has greatly streamlined the tedious process of determining who should be interviewed. Not only do the vast majority of employers and recruiters use these systems, but today’s 4th generation systems even screen employer job descriptions as well as applicant resumes and cover letters with the intent of determining state of mind and intent, such as flagging potentially biased language! 

Applicant Tracking Systems and AI are able to produce a short list of the best candidates based on analysis of 100’s of resumes, LinkedIn profiles and other Social Media signals as measured against the Hiring Manager’s check list, job description and other requirements. Autobots routinely set appointments with ATS selected candidates before a hiring manager has even seen their resume. In theory, the hiring manager now has before her the crème de la crème… but does she?

Here’s the Bad News…

Unfortunately, the resume of the best applicant doesn’t always appear in the hiring manager’s interview stack. In fact, it should be absolutely clear that you will lose your chance to even compete with other applicants for the “short stack” if your resume doesn’t first succeed with the Artificial Intelligence driving the Applicant Tracking System. 

Why LinkedIn has become so important in the job search for both candidates and employers

The AI that is reviewing and scoring your resume functions in the cloud. LinkedIn and Social Media are it’s cloud neighbors, and since autobots are indefatigable, while it’s examining your resume, a search of LinkedIn and sometimes other social media is performed, in an effort to determine the congruency of your resume with your other public profiles, and sometimes, even to determine if you are likely to be among other things, controversial! ie. Applicant Harvey Wallbanger is about to regret all those porn cartoons he posted on Facebook.

LinkedIn is also a tool that can be used to source candidates without having to run employment ads. Just consider LinkedIn’s mind blowing stats. Over 30 million companies have developed LinkedIn Business Pages that serve as gateways to over 20 million open jobs every single month. Over 500 million college educated users, and over 100 million job applications are submitted every month! 

It's no surprise to find that about 85% of recruiters regularly use LinkedIn. This includes recruiters for virtually every major employer in America and across the world. This one platform has virtually changed the landscape of job searching forever!

So, how do recruiters find you? Well it's not with high speed scrolling. Recruiters use search terms and filters to sort thru millions of resumes everyday searching for the right candidates. Landing in a recruiter’s search results doesn’t have to be a matter of luck. By crafting a search-optimized LinkedIn profile and resume, you can immediately rank higher for the types of jobs you’re most interested in. When you outperform your competitors in terms of search results, and you will greatly increase the frequency with which offers flow in!

How To Show Up In Searches. The strategy is called "Resume SEO" (Search Engine Optimization) which could be the most critical SEO skill you ever develop. For example, the skill section in your LinkedIn profile is a keyword rich opportunity that allows you to list up to 50 skills.

A word of warning.  Going thru your listed skills on the first iteration ATS might cull you out as a perfect match given all your skills that match the recruiter's check list. You are on your way…. until… on the next iteration the ATS tries to match those skills to your endorsements and finds nothing. The recruiter never even gets to look at you because ATS has called BS and dropped you from the search results.

Here's The Skill Secret: Pay attention to endorsements and tempting as it is, do not list any skills in your LinkedIn profile of which you have not acquired endorsements. The ATS routinely checks to see if you have endorsements in the skills you've listed and it’s possible to have your entire resume discounted thereby missing the recruiter or hiring manager’s “short stack” if ATS has found say, a list of 50 skills with not a single endorsement.

To further clarify, this does not mean you can’t list a skill on your resume for which you have not received an endorsement, but it does mean don’t list a skill in the skill section of a LinkedIn profile, unless it is an endorsed skill.

How to be Keyword Rich without a Stuffing Penalty. Search engines regularly crawl your Profile so it should contain enough keywords relevant to your current job search that the search engine gets the idea. So if you are seeking a job as Purchasing Manager, don't waste that precious Profile space talking about how you learned to knit during the great quarantine.

Also, don't get cute with keyword stuffing. That's so old school and it no longer works because AI has gotten really good at natural language. So how often can you use those keywords without getting penalized in ranking or dropped from search results? How do you avoid penalties and stay competitive in the recruiter's search results? Simple. Write your profile using natural language with good spelling and grammar to tell your story. Use your valuable, relevant keywords in a natural pattern of speech and if you stay on topic and don't ramble, you're gold.

After you have finished your profile, circle back to your Experience section and make sure your most important keywords show up there as well, adding weight to the proof they accurately describe you. Again, to avoid a stuffing penalty, make sure they are used in context and make appropriate sense.

Are you making a change from one field to another? Then use this strategy in your headings and keywords…

Your Headings and Keywords. If you are making a change in career fields, it might be difficult to show experience. Take a look at each job in your work history and determine if any of your previous job duties sync with any requirements in your new career objective.

For example, if you are a tax accountant wanting to move your career into financial analysis, look for duties or projects you may have worked on in each of your previous tax related jobs that contained a component of financial analysis. Then write a brief description (one line) for that job using keywords that sync with the requirements you already know will be part of your new career objective. 

Now that you have a keyword rich new description for each of your previous jobs, use this description as a bolded headline for each job section instead of bolding the employer's name. My preference would be to keep your work order in the standard reverse chronological order but making your relevant experience slightly easier to see.

Your Trust Profile. Today, AI (Artificial Intelligence) driven ATS will automatically look for congruency while developing a trust profile. After going thru your profile, skills, endorsements and experience while compiling the keywords that are describing you, in the blink of an eye, it will then determine if you have published posts and articles and have you written on topics that match or support your keyword profile. (I suspect this is one reason there are fewer cute cat photos on LinkedIn)

Do you participate in groups whose topics tend to support your keyword profile? What has been your posting frequency? Think consistency, think real and valuable post content. The good news here, is you can greatly influence your own trust ranking by using your keywords with smart, original and quality posting that contains backlinks while staying congruent with your profile.

Quality Backlinks. Google has been spidering LinkedIn publisher posts for quite some time and will list them in search results. Backlinks are a ranking signal for Google which is a boost for you. Start by linking your LinkedIn publisher posts back to either your blog or website and always to your LinkedIn profile. If you place guest posts on other pages and blogs (including friends on LinkedIn) again, make sure you have a link back to your LinkedIn profile. All you have to do is list yourself as author of the article and hotlink your name back to your LinkedIn profile and in your post, call it your bio link.

Why you should care about the value of LinkedIn posting. Just take a moment to consider this simple math and you will instantly see the value of posting your own content.

Every week, LinkedIn content is seen 9 billion times, spread over 250 million active users. That's about 36 billion impressions each month. Of those 250 million active users only a little over 1% (3 million) post weekly content. Amazing!

This means LinkedIn is distributing 9 billion impressions each week between only 3 million members posting original content! That's an average of 3,000 views on your article each week, for free! Further, if you decided to link back to your blog or website you will see an uptick in traffic. Last but not least, Google crawls and indexes LinkedIn posts which should lead to further benefit from your keyword usage. Meanwhile, back at your resume, the recruiter's AI search software is busy increasing your trust and profile ranking because it has discovered indicator signals of authority flashed by your content posting activities.

Bottom line: Set up both your LinkedIn profile and your resume using keywords in both your text and headings, take advantage of all those skills you can list while making sure they are supported by endorsements, post regular [original] content and be sure to use backlinks to your profile and your blog if you have one. Don't forget to upload your resume in your LinkedIn profile section and reap the benefits of increased visibility and ranking by the recruiting community. Most ATS systems will accept a short cover letter uploaded with your resume and then crawl your cover letter for keyword content. Apply the same strategy with your cover letter as with your resume and profile.

Stay congruent, use your relevant keywords. Rinse and repeat for a lifetime of quality employment offers.

Glenn M Sitter on

Content Driven SEO for Resumes

[email protected] [we write resumes]

https://SSLDUCK.COM specializes in cybersecurity and content driven SEO

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