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Many of our career
coaching clients want to know how to write a killer cover
letter and resume, and there are a lot of experts who
can help them write good content into their cover
letters and cv's. But these experts rarely ensure
their techniques keep up with the latest in technology.
Effective career coaching on cover letters and
resumes adds a few critical techniques. And
the best technique in writing a cover letter or resume
are the words contained in the job description itself.
Why?
Because there are two filters between your resume and
cover letter, on the one hand, and an interview on the
other. One of those filters is a piece of software
at the company you're applying to; it operates like a
search engine. The other filter is a human
resources person who often doesn't really understand the
job requirements or how the applicant's background might
be transferable to them and is therefore reduced to
acting a lot like a piece of
software: not much independent judgment,
creativity, or imagination. So what are these
filters looking for?
Both filters look for keywords.
Just like search engines.
It's just common sense that your resume and cover letter should address many of
the qualifications requested by the job posting. But it's important to use
identical or very similar words in doing so. That's because the filters
are looking for very specific words, and if they don't find enough of them, your
application will end up on the equivalent of the 20th page of Google.
Which is to say that it will not be passed on to a human with decision-making
authority. If the first filter a company applies is a piece of software,
your application may not get reviewed by a human being at all.
So it becomes very important to get past their filters.
As an example, if a job asked for "project management and managerial
experience," your resume and cover letter both should contain those exact words.
What's more, they should contain variations on the root words contained
in that description.
What are root words? In this example:
project
management
managerial
experience
But that's not all:
projects
projecting (an example, but not necessarily a good word in this context)
manage
manager
managing
managed
experiences
experienced
Finally, there are words that are not roots but are likely to show up in a
relevant page having to do with the topic at hand, such as, in this case, SAP,
Siebel, Java, Linux, server, and so on. The search engines know that these
words often show up with "project management," and so do the software filters
used by human resources.
This use of root words, also called "stemming," is exactly what search engines
do to determine which web pages on the Internet have the most relevance to a
searcher's search.
In a job application, the company has made its search. It has typed in a
lengthy job description.
Your cover letter and resume are like web pages. Will you make them
relevant -- or will they not come up on the search results pages at all?
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CAREER COACHING
So ask for that
free coaching consultation now. There's no obligation, and for
no charge you can learn more about coaching in general,
about personal coaches, or about our personal coaches
and how they can help you identify and achieve your
personal goals and dreams. If there's one thing
successful people have in common, it's that when they
see a great idea, they act immediately. Do it for
yourself. In addition to the coaching, we have the
expertise to guide you through powerful career
assessment tools.
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(click the button above to request free coaching):
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