More than 80 percent of resumes are searched for job-specific keywords. Therefore, if you apply for a job with a company that searches databases for keywords, and your resume doesn’t have the keywords the company seeks for the person who fills that job, you are pretty much dead in the water.
Summary/profile sections can be important for front-loading your resume with these all-important keywords. (Lack of front-loaded keywords decreases ability to match resumes to potential jobs quickly at critical first- and second-level scanning. Many job-seekers would likely benefit from a section of industry-specific keywords, labelled with a heading such as Areas of Expertise, Core Competencies, or Key Proficiencies. To display your keywords, you might want to use a reader-friendly table, as in this sample resume or in this sample resume.
To read more about keywords, see our article Tapping the Power of Keywords to Enhance Your Resume’s Effectiveness.
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