In This Issue

1. Welcome Message

2. How to make best use of Skills and Keywords on a Resume

3. Q+A

Welcome Back

I could write 100 issues on resumes and still never cover everything. You could also ask 5 people for resume advice and get 5 different pieces of advice, that is what makes resume writing and resume tips so frustrating. There is no perfect resume or perfect answer.

It is important to understand that and accept you can’t take every piece of advice you get (mine included), find an approach you think works for you and go for it. There is no perfect answer, but you can not try to combine every tip everyone gave you or your resume will suffer.

That being said, today I specifically want to focus on the idea of Keywords and Skills with future issues talking about different parts of a resume.

Keywords and Skills on a Resume?

It's easy to get caught up in a never ending list of minor details that in the grand scheme of things have very little impact on your resume's effectiveness. If you ever discuss resumes with me you will constantly hear me use the word Impact!

My resume tips are always based on having as much impact in as few words as possible. One of the biggest impact factors on a resume is how you show off your skills. This week I was featured in the Harvard Business Review discussing matching a resume to a job description and the skills section was a big part of my talking point.

I wrote about this on Linkedin as well this week, but I want to reiterate my point and dive a bit deeper:

My issue with most skills sections on resumes is that people list a giant set of keywords thinking they have to beat the ATS, but they don’t actually describe the work they did or how they showed off the skills. The actual most important part of a resume is showing the actual work you did, not just listing a bunch of words chasing an ATS score.

Let’s save the ATS debate for another issue, but even in a world where ATS robots and AI are making decisions based on keywords (they almost never are) your use of the keywords still will make the difference over everybody else who is also just cramming them in to beat the (mythical) robot.

Even if interviews were selected by a robot based on how often the right words show up, you’re still unlikely to move forward after that robot overlord gives it to us lowly humans because we still have to read the resumes, and if we can’t see you actually demonstrating your skills, then we are not going to go with the candidates that are demonstrating skills, not just forcing them onto a piece of paper. Hiring is not done by an ATS score, no matter how large or small a part of the process you want to believe ATS scores are.

There is a huge difference between writing “agile” in your skill section and writing a bullet point about following agile processes by doing XYZ.

There is a huge difference between writing “Java” in a skills section and writing a bullet point that says “developed XYZ feature using Java in order to make ABC feature work”

A skills section often eats up valuable real estate on your resume with a really long list of buzzwords that you haven’t actually shown any competency in.

A respected colleague of mine you should all be following on Linkedin Kelli Hrivnak posted a resume sample she had found online just today that really drove this point home. Look how about ¼ of this resume is a giant list of skills that are not being shown off anywhere on the resume. Even if this were to “beat the ATS” (again, not your goal), there are very few managers or recruiters who will actually interview this candidate who has not shown off the skills they are listing, especially such a huge list of soft skills. This is the danger with trying to beat a machine and not writing a resume that focuses on the actual content and work.

And here is the big takeaway with what I’m saying: Even If the goal is to beat an ATS by listing enough words to score high you are still putting all the actual key words in. If agile is a keyword or if Java is a keyword, you are still including them in your resume. The ATS robot overlords will still find them and approve you to be viewed by a human. But now the lowly human who never would have reviewed your resume without the robot’s approval can see your actual skills being demonstrated and will be thrilled to talk to you about them.

No Q+A this week as I was a little rushed in getting this issue out due to the new projects mentioned above, however hopefully next week we can include several questions.

I’d love to answer your question in an upcoming issue. Submit any questions you’d like me to discuss here.

I have also become far more active on my Instagram recently including doing Ask Me Anything sessions a few times a week, so follow me there and feel free to ask any questions you may have during those times.

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