The Perfect Resume: 3 Tips For Customizing Yours

By Marie Raperto, The Hiring HubThe perfect resume is everyone's dream.  Tailoring your resume so you get the interview is what you want to do, but it's not easy.  Every one is scanning resumes.  Applicant tracking systems scan for keywords, hiring managers are scanning for relevant skills.  You can't please everyone with one resume.  Each hiring manager/recruiter could be looking for something different.  That's why it's so important to customize your resume for each posting.  It might sound tedious and time-consuming but with a few tips you can get it done easily.  When answering an ad or reviewing a job description:1.  Hunt for keywords.  Watch for keywords like external relations, digital marketing etc. and also note how many times they were mentioned.2.  Look for job skills.  While keywords are usually the disciplines (media relations, internal communications etc.), the job skills will further define responsibilities,  such as manage digital campaigns, supervise a team, write/edit materials etc.Now add these to your resume.  If a keyword is mentioned several times, make sure you add it more than once.   The more the ad or description mentions a specific keyword, the more important it is.3.  Pick the most important keywords and see if you can add an accomplishment to it.  Make sure you are specific.  You want to show that you can do it!A fun thing to try is to put your current resume in a free online word cloud generator.  See what words are highlighted before and after you customize your resume.  You can search online for these programs (www.wordclouds.com/www.wordel.net).  There a many of them to try.