Page 12 - The Editors of VGM Career Books - Resumes for Computer Careers, Second Edition (2002)

The Elements of an Effective Resume 3

an objective is one to two sentences long. Its contents will vary depending
on your career field, goals, and personality. The objective can be specific
or general, but it should always be to the point. See the sample resumes in
this book for examples.
If you are planning to use this resume online, or you suspect your
potential employer is likely to scan your resume, you will want to include
a “keyword” in the objective. This allows a prospective employer, search-
ing hundreds of resumes for a specific skill or position objective, to locate
the keyword and find your resume. In essence, a keyword is what’s “hot”
in your particular field at a given time. It’s a buzzword, a shorthand way
of getting a particular message across at a glance. For example, if you are
a lawyer, your objective might state your desire to work in the area of cor-
porate litigation. In this case, someone searching for the keyword “corpo-
rate litigation” will pull up your resume and know that you want to plan,
research, and present cases at trial on behalf of the corporation. If your
objective states that you “desire a challenging position in systems design,”
the keyword is “systems design,” an industry-specific shorthand way of say-
ing that you want to be involved in assessing the need for, acquiring, and
implementing high-technology systems. These are keywords and every
industry has them, so it’s becoming more and more important to include
a few in your resume. (You may need to conduct additional research to
make sure you know what keywords are most likely to be used in your
desired industry, profession, or situation.)
There are many resume and job-search sites online. Like most things
in the online world, they vary a great deal in quality. Use your discretion.
If you plan to apply for jobs online or advertise your availability this way,
you will want to design a scannable resume. This type of resume uses a
format that can be easily scanned into a computer and added to a data-
base. Scanning allows a prospective employer to use keywords to quickly
review each applicant’s experience and skills, and (in the event that there
are many candidates for the job) to keep your resume for future reference.
Many people find that it is worthwhile to create two or more versions
of their basic resume. You may want an intricately designed resume on
high-quality paper to mail or hand out and a resume that is designed to
be scanned into a computer and saved on a database or an online job site.
You can even create a resume in ASCII text to e-mail to prospective employ-
ers. For further information, you may wish to refer to the Guide to Inter-
net Job Searching, by Frances Roehm and Margaret Dikel, updated and
published every other year by McGraw-Hill. This excellent book contains
helpful and detailed information about formatting a resume for Internet
use. To get you started, in Chapter 3 we have included a list of things to
keep in mind when creating electronic resumes.