Power dressing: Just like a pair of stilettos spell style, a key word-rich resume ensures that you stand out

Q. You have sent out hundreds of résumés and have received only automated responses, and not one request for an interview. Is that common, and what can you do about it?

A.Welcome to the Internet black hole. That is how Mark Mehler, co-founder of CareerXroads, describes the new universe of job seeking. With the rise of online company job sites, along with job boards like CareerBuilder and other niche sites, it is easier than ever to apply for a job.

At the same time, it is much harder for a résumé to be noticed.

Ten years ago, you made copies of your résumé — perhaps on gorgeous creamy bond stationery — and after seeing a job that was advertised in your local newspaper, sent it out, along with a cover letter, in a manila envelope.

Now you can go to your computer and find out about jobs all around the world, and apply for them by touching the send button. Unfortunately, so can everyone else.

“The Internet has had a remarkable impact not only on the volume of résumés being sent, but on the entire job search process,” said Wendy S. Enelow, executive director of Career Masters Institute, an association of résumé writers and career coaches based in Peterborough, New Hampshire.

Q.How does an increased volume of résumés affect the people who do the hiring?

A.It makes them very pressed for time. The harsh reality is that the no. 1 goal of most recruiters “is to eliminate and exclude as many people as possible,” Enelow said.

The average Fortune 500 company receives about 2,000 résumés a day, said Mark Mehler of CareerXroads, whose firm, based in Kendall Park, New Jersey, helps companies plan their recruiting strategies.

“Now the jobseeker has maybe five seconds of the recruiter’s eye to make their case to be hired,” he said.

And maybe not even that. Many companies now use word-scanning technology to help them winnow out unqualified candidates.

If a résumé does not include certain key words, it lands in the trash.

Q.How can you make your résumé stand out from the crowd?

A.First, a résumé must make it through that automated technology. To do that, “People need to be certain that their résumés are key word-rich,” Enelow said.

In short, make sure that your résumé contains many of the same nouns and verbs that are listed in the job advertisement (so obvious and yet so often not done, career coaches say). And include key words that are common to your line of work. In sales, for example, these could be phrases like “account management” and “product presentation”.

Pay attention to how your résumé looks on the screen. Send it to several friends to see how it reads to them. Make judicious use of bold-face type and white space for emphasis and readability. Avoid underlining and the use of italics, though, as these can run together or result in outlandish symbols in the text.

It sounds basic, but make sure that your résumé is free of typos and other errors. When applying by e-mail, there is more of a tendency to rush and to make careless mistakes. For many employers, this shows a lack of attention to detail and is an easy way to eliminate someone from consideration.

Now that the application process is filled with such speed and urgency, many people are not taking the time to customise and perfect their résumés, Enelow said. But taking special care is more important than ever.

Q.Do effective résumés tend to be structured differently now?

A.The biggest change in résumés over the last decade has been a switch from an objective to a summary at the top, Enelow said. The summary emphasises the skills that the applicant can offer the company, rather than stressing what the applicant is seeking. A pithy, well-considered, “key word-rich” summary can be crucial.

Q.Is a paper résumé passé these days?

A. Some career experts say that it is, but others say that for certain positions — say, high-level management jobs in old-line industries — it still has its place. At Fortune 500 companies, more than 90 per cent of résumés are sent by e-mail or through the company website, Mehler said. If you use an envelope and a stamp, you may be showing your age, he said.

Enelow recommends taking a paper copy of your résumé along with you to give to the hiring manager once you have made it to an interview.

Q.What about video résumés?

A.Video résumés are gaining in popularity, but Enelow said they are still mainly appropriate for people who are applying to be on-air personalities and the like. In most fields, chances are that a video résumé will simply be ignored, she said, because viewing it takes so much more time than skimming through an e-mail message.

Q.In order to land a job, is it ever enough just to send a résumé?

A.Almost never. “Your job is not done after you click ‘send’,” said Susan Britton Whitcomb, president of the Career Coach Academy, of Fresno, California, and the author of Résumé Magic. That is a mistake many jobseekers are making in the Internet age, she said. “You must also find some sort of inside contact.” She said the Internet, in the form of business networking sites like LinkedIn, has created new ways to find that all-important personal pathway to the hiring manager.

The Internet, then, may have brought major changes to the job search process, but the phrase “it’s not what you know, it’s who you know” is as true as it was 50 years ago.