A Word About Your Resume

I got an interview through Indeed.com, just a little temp job. The invitation sent to me was a forward of the whole email from Indeed to the employer, including a link to the employer's login. As someone interested in security I found this hard to believe, but fortunately the link didn't let me in. Whew. If it had I would have quit using Indeed right there.

But clicking it did automatically set up an employer account for me to try, and sent me an invitation to a webinar about how Indeed works for employers. Which I watched today as the presenter used the Indeed system live while people called in questions.

One thing I learned was not to be jealous of tech employees. She did a search in Chicago for software engineers, there were 30k applicants within 25 miles, many more at 50. So the webinar was not about finding applicants, it was mostly about filtering them out so the HR peep didn't have a tsunami of resumes to wade through. So much for low unemployment numbers, if nothing else.

Also, Indeed encourages HR people to limit searches geographically, so that means you may be just out of range for something you'd normally qualify for. I'm still working on a way to run around that, may just paste a list of all 48 CONUS states in the Location space.

Next, the Indeed resume importer does not make your resume search-friendly, quite the opposite. It chooses the wrong words for headings and does other stupid stuff, my uploaded resume was mangled. Which was a lot easier to see from the employer side. Take time and build it manually, you can cut/paste parts from your doc file. When I did a search after redoing my resume, it looked far better. And here's another thing, recent changes jump to the top, so go in a change it once in a while.

For each Work Experience use searchable job titles, searchable company name, etc. Or you'll disappear.

Because, when someone searches, they see a list in bold that only shows job titles and company, not the entire entry. They can click on it and see the rest, but initially they only get a brief overview. Mine was all messed up in that view, I looked like a maniac. And I didn't come up in searches either.

What I did was add lots of search keywords like those rats do on Craigslist where they're selling a junkyard Dodge Dart but have Ford Mustang Chevelle Ferrari Oldsmobile 55 chevy and so forth down in the bottom of the ad so you'll get the ad when you search for Chevelle. I made mine ridiculous, every possible term I could come up with is in there now, including No Ph.D from Harvard in the education section. Well, I'm not lying.

Now we'll see what happens. Maybe I'll sell that old Dart yet. :^)

 

There was a comment made in the Indeed Employer webinar that it's harder to use for driving jobs because many truck drivers don't have a resume or post it anywhere. I don't know how true that is. Recently one of the trucking jobs places sent me an email about keeping my resume updated because if it says 1 year and you really have 3, then you may miss out on some offers. At the same time I've read lots of posts on here about drivers being underpaid.

It seems to me that having a resume out there for recruiters puts you a notch up, if you're looking around. It might, for example, draw in an HR person unfamiliar with how trucking works or what a DAC is, but who has a specialty position to fill with certain requirements. And there they are, and that's your phone ringing. Because if it talks like a pro and acts like a pro, maybe it is.