Keywords
Keywords are critical to the successful electronic search of your e-resume. Each database system has a built-in search engine that looks for keywords associated with particular job openings. (These search engines work similarly to those you use on the Internet.) There's no set list of keywords; they will vary from one job opening to another, depending on what the job opening requires. Keywords are determined and input by the recruiter or hiring manager who's looking for a candidate to fill a particular job.

A keyword search might look for up to 60 keywords. The keywords in your resume indicate important information about you, such as:

• Technical expertise
  
• Management skills
  
• Industry knowledge
  
• Education and training
  
• Geographic location
  
• Employment history

Once the database system's search engine has been given a list of keywords, it will locate all resumes that contain any of the keywords, count the number of keywords per resume, and rank the resumes accordingly.

More sophisticated systems employ synonym-search capabilities to locate similar words as well as exact keywords. For instance, if a search engine is asked to find the keyword “writing,” the engine may also find resumes with words such as “documentation,” “report,” and “proposal” — all very similar terms.

Some systems allow recruiters and hiring managers to give selected keywords more weight in the ranking system, based on the keywords' relevance to the job opening. For example, if leadership is more important than technical knowledge for a particular job, the recruiter can tell the system to give more value to leadership (compared to technical knowledge) when ranking candidates' resumes.

Because keywords are so important to the success of your e-resume, let's go over some tips for good keyword placement.