Important Keywords and Phrases for Resumes

Resume writing is as much and art as a science, and a well-written resume will take you far. With employers seeking workers via the Internet, often times keywords and phrases become the first trigger to an employer’s interest when your resume comes back in search results. Likewise, an employer that searches for employees by inviting resume submission may actually put resumes into databases that search for certain keywords.  Regardless of the method, potential employers do look for certain words and phrases. Which words and phrases depend on your profession, but there are many that are universal in their appeal.

Keywords and phrases that work well in resumes are those that convey a feeling of action, ability, participation and accomplishment. Likewise, words that are specific jargon or that reflect skills that are exclusive to a profession are attractive. Here is a list of more generic words or key phrases that work:

Ability to
Accomplished
Acted as
Administered
Arranged
Assisted
Coordinated
Created
Delegated
Directed
Edited
Established
Evaluated
Implemented
Instrumental in
Led
Maintained
Organized
Planned
Proficient at
Progressed
Reorganized
Responsible for
Recommended for
Successful in
Supervised
Taught
Trained
Worked with

How should you use these words in your resume?  One of the best ways is to include a "Skills Profile" or "Summary of Qualifications".  This can be a bulleted section that points out your activities and accomplishments in a compact area on the resume.  This section should be full of keywords and phrases. You can then use keywords throughout the rest of the resume as you highlight employment history and education.

The short list presented above is a list of the types of words or phrases that will make your resume more noticeable and make you a more desirable candidate. Upon consideration, you can probably come up with many, many more. It's fine to use plenty of these words as long as the information you are giving is honest and accurate. It sounds so much better to write: "Implemented an updated budget, saving the company thousands in the first year.” than "I wrote a budget that helped the company save money." Again, just make sure you can back up what you're writing.  These keywords and phrases are an invaluable tool when writing your resume. Don't forget to use them!

Posted:Monday, September 03, 2007