Guest Author - J. Lynn

The Dot Com boom has ended and coupled with our current economy, the job market is a race where survival of the fittest still applies. With the advent of online job hunting resources like Monster.com and Hotjobs.com, many people assume that getting a job is as simple as sending out 100 resumes to all of the online job sites they can find. Not true.

Getting and staying employed is work, in and of itself. You have to be committed and work daily to get the right fit for you and the company you are inquiring with. While most of us understand that, there are still those that do not.

Online Job sites offer companies the opportunity to open themselves up to as many ‘qualified’ job seekers as possible with very little effort. Some job seekers respond with even less effort, often applying for jobs they are not qualified for and essentially spamming the hiring manager with hundreds, and sometimes thousands of resumes that don’t fit the job opening.

When a hiring manager places an ad with an online site on a Friday and return to their office on Monday, they often have to weed through these hundreds of resumes for the ones that are legit and have the needed qualifications for their positions. In doing so, it’s easy to get missed if your resume doesn’t contain all of the necessary elements to get their attention.

If you want your resume to end up on the right desk and be sure that it is looked at, you need to be diligent in writing your resume and include the right information in all the right places.

Here are some tips to be sure that your resume gets the attention it deserves:
1) Read the job listing carefully and make sure that you have all of the necessary qualifications for the position. If the hiring manager is looking for a CCNA (Cisco Certified Network Associate) and you have never taken the CCNA course, much less know what a CCNA is, don’t apply for the job. This listing is specifically for those with that certification and submitting your resume decreases the chances that someone with experience that meets those requirements will get noticed. Your job is out there, you just have to find it.

2) Make sure your resume is updated and looks polished and professional. Most online job sites have sample resumes. These samples give you an idea of what resumes should look like in the market you are in. Times have changes and with the times, terms have as well. A term like ‘Objective’ could now be called “Summary” and rather than have the copy/paste version of “I’m looking for a company that I can grow with”, they now want to see your experience in a brief synopsis and the kind of position and environment that you work best in. A better inclusion into your summary might be better written as “11 years of experience with Firewalls and Network security with companies with more than 1000 employees”.

3) If writing resumes isn’t your forte, you should definitely contact a professional that can assist you with writing one. They have experience and they know what hiring managers want to see when they look at a resume. Remember to keep your resume to one page only, unless you have specific experience, references and accreditations that apply to the position.

4) Create a specific resume for each job you are applying for and make sure that it is tailored to that job listing. If you are applying for 2 different jobs and one has different requirements than the other and you meet them both, you will want to highlight those in the resume that you send to the hiring manager requesting it.

5) Remember, “If you do not fit, do not hit submit”. If the job is not really what you are looking for and you are not fully qualified, don’t waste your time or the time of the hiring manager submitting your resume. Your time is more valuable working on getting the right job for you, so be patient and diligent and apply for the jobs suited to your experience.