In the age of COVID-19, every job application process is strictly digital, from resume submission to interview to salary negotiation. For most of 2019, India’s unemployment numbers hovered around 7-8%, spiking to over 23% in April and May 2020, once the effects of COVID-19 shook the economy.
Job candidates are found through online applications, social media, and email referrals, and recruitment processes are completely digitized. With so many people scrambling to secure new jobs in a volatile labor market, it’s more important than ever before to make sure you have an AI-ATS friendly resume. It’s also key to make sure your online presence is helping you. Fortunately, there’s something you can do about it — it’s called search engine optimization (SEO). In general use, SEO refers to techniques to make web content more appealing and relevant to search engine algorithms.
Here are the few simple tricks to resume optimization:
Technology driven resume AI-ATS:
How can you craft a resume that beats the AI-powered Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) and impresses the people who might hire you? With so many people having to apply for new jobs these days, understanding how to write an ATS-friendly resume is extremely important. There are some important resume formatting guidelines to follow, and it’s critical to prioritize career-specific keywords. The more straightforward and concise your resume can be, the easier it is for the bots to scan your resume and approve it. You want to get your application past the bots and into the hands of the right recruitment consultancy and hiring manager as quickly as possible. At the end of the day, this technology isn’t going anywhere, and now is the prime time to make sure you’re prepared to make yourself as desirable of a candidate as possible.
Eye-catchy resume headline:
Millions of websites rely on compelling effective headlines to generate traffic, and why shouldn’t you do the same when it comes to catching the eyes of HR Consultancy and hiring managers? For starters, you should consider putting the name of the position you are applying for in the title. If you’re applying for instance, a software engineer role, you might use “Highly Experienced Software Engineer Professional work with MNC’s” as your headline. This announces right away that you’re a candidate whose background and experience are aligned with the described requirements of the role.
Use relevant keywords:
The best keywords for your resume depend on your job, day-to-day responsibilities, target job and relevant experience. So, it is very crucial big challenge that how and where to put the keywords as per your technicality and industry requirement. In the resume summary mainly we have to more focus, only put relevant industry based keywords. So that Recruitment Consultancy and hiring managers fetch the applications easily.
Add relevant hyperlink:
Web content that includes hyperlinks to credible source material tends to have a higher page rank within search engines results page than content that does not. You can apply the same principle to your resume-optimization strategy. But don’t just link to your previous employer’s website. Instead, try to link to examples of relevant recent projects or work anything that will be taken as evidence by the recruitment agencies and hiring managers that you’re the best candidate for the job.
Connect LinkedIn profile:
This is probably the first place a potential recruiter will check out once they have been through your CV and resume to gain additional insights about you. Your LinkedIn profile is your opportunity to build your brand and be visible to the recruiters’ largest online source under one roof. Ensure your LinkedIn profile follows the best practices laid out by the experts. Make sure that your profile must be well update. So, connect your LinkedIn profile in to your resume so that recruitment agency can easily get to know more about your summary, connections, projects, recommendations and many more.
The graphic below explains more about the resume optimization tips how to make it past the resume screening bots to give yourself the best chance at securing a job during the pandemic and beyond as well.
