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Quite a bit of people these days are talking about search engine optimization (SEO) for resumes. If you are new to the concept, you might be thinking, what in the world do search engines like Google and Yahoo have to do with my resume?
 
Such thinking is well founded because as things currently stand, the answer is “very little!” In this case when people say “search engine”, they are referring to the propritary search engines that sites like Monster and Career Builder have connected to their database of resumes. Both corporations as well as third party recruiters pay big bucks in order to be able to access databases like these in order to search for candidates.
 
In some cases the price they pay allows them a certain, limited number of searches per month. With lots of money involved, you had better believe that it's in an job-board's best inerest to provide their clients with relevant results.
 
One of the ways they do this is by borrowing a search engine concept that the big boy engines, like Google have been employing for some time. The concept is known in SEO circles as “keyword proximity”. In a nutshell the idea is that in any body of text, no matter the size, the same word of phrase should have a different impact on search results depending on it's distance from a fixed point in the text.
 
Now I know that that sounded like a bunch of technical gobldy-gook, so let me give you as strait forward an example as I can come up with. For an engine like Goggle the URL http://dog.com will have better keyword proximity for someone searching for the term “dog” then a the URL http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog.
 
The reason is that the fixed point in this example is the beginning (left-most point) of the text, and in the first example, the word “dog”, in dog.com has greater proximity to the beginning of the text then it does in the other URL. It seems that sites like Monster use keyword proximity in their algorithm much like Google does.
 
You can apply this to your resume by figuing out which terms recruiters are searching for when trying to fill the type of job description you are interested in, and then putting those terms as close to the top of your resume as possible.
 
Of course you want do this creativly, in such a way that the resume is still readable and attracitve to human readers as well as machines. Engaging in “keyword stuffing” and repeating relavant phrases ad-naseum in your resume is not likely to win the hearts and minds of any humans who come across your resume.
 
I fist heard of the idea of “keyword proximity for resumes” from Mark Alves who is a professional in the field of Search Engine Optimization and Online Marketing. After applying these tweaks to my own resume, I found that I recived more calls from recruiters that had found my resume on various job boards. For more information from Mark, check out his blog on church marketing, ChurchMojo.com.
 

While third-party job recruiters definitely want to fill vacancies for clients, they also seem to have a universal fear of suggesting a bad candidate to a client. Such feelings on behalf of the recruiter make total sense when considered in light of their incentive structure.
 
Most recruiters get paid for filling vacancies, so obviously they would like to make money by filling these vacancies for their clients. At the same time however, recruiting is a competitive field, and if they find their client and employee that turns out to be a “lemon”, then not only will they look bad, but their chance of getting repeat business from that client will drop dramatically.
 
Many recruiters seem to operate by keeping a running mental count of how many “red flags” a particular prospect triggers. One red flag and chances are they won't cross you off their list, two of them and you still might be able to land the job, but with three or more you are in dangerous waters, and the chances of never hearing from a particular recruiter again, will have skyrocketed.
 

Bob Sutton, author of The No Asshole Rule, wrote a post on his blog a few days ago about the strange case of Prof. Bill Reader from the University of Ohio School of Journalism. The story has twists and turns and seems convoluted as-all-get-out, but to oversimplify it as best as I can, it seems that the professor was for the most part, adored by students, but had difficulty getting along with some of his colleges.
 
His tenure review board voted 7-5 to give him tenure which evidently meant that the vote would have to be ratified by the dean, who did not seem eager to grant Prof. Reader tenure. I am not interested in deciding which party is in the right, since we who are far removed from the situation are in the worst position to do so.
 
What does interest me, is the notion which Sutton suggests that...
 
"Perhaps the best thing to do is to delay the tenure decision for a couple years and make it contingent on him changing his behavior -- in other words, contingent on him returning to sufficiently good mental health to keep his inner jerk in check."

                        "When you are asked if you can do a job, tell 'em, 'Certainly I can!' Then get busy                                                and find out how to do it."      -Theodore Roosevelt
 
Imagine for a moment that your looking for a job as sales manager. You look online and see a posting that appeals to you. After looking at their list of required and preferred qualifications and conclude that they are basically looking for four core competencies, which in this case are lead-generation, pre-qualification, closing the sale, and the use of customer relationship management (CRM) software.
 
If you have past work experience which demonstrates that you have mastery in any of these core areas, then in regards to that area, you are golden, and have no need to worry about any interview questions which might address those areas. Let's say that you feel as if you have mastery in the first three areas, however in regards to past experience using CRM software you feel slightly lacking.
 
If you have a good theoretical knowledge of the subject area, and honestly feel that you could hit the ground running working for this company after giving yourself a crash course, then you should consider pursuing the opportunity. Assuming that you are fairly interested in this position then you might want to start your course of study well before you sit down for your interview.

There is a kind of dance that goes on between recruiters and job seekers, and if you know the steps involved, it can make the process of interaction more fruitful. One of the elements of this ballet is recruiter jargon. The first bit of recruiter terminology were going to address is the term “an updated resume”.
 
Often when you get contacted by a recruiter they will let you know that they have seen your resume online and that they think you might be a good fit for one of their clients. They will then email you a job description and ask for you to provide them with an updated resume.
 
It's important to keep in mind that the job title you listed in your online resume and the job title they are recruiting for are often not be the same, but rather related job descriptions. So by sending you the job description and asking you to give them an updated resume, what is often implied is “please tweak your resume so it 'fits' with this job description.”

There is a disturbing trend that seems to be most prevalent in hiring practices related to emerging fields.  Examples of job descriptions from that last few years where this dynamic might have been heightened are the emergence of Six Sigma in process engineering, the migration from Perl to PHP in computer programing, or the emergence of Social Media within the field of online marketing.
 
In order to describe this phenomenon I will use a hypothetical example, and for the sake of our discussion I will make up an imaginary emerging field, and call it “Quark Manufacturing”.
 
So let's say you are in this field and you see an add on Craigslist for a Quark Manufacturing Specialist. Your excited to see a opportunity in your field, so you forward your resume and become doubly enthused when you get a call from a hiring manager at said company explaining that they were impressed by your resume and would like you to come in for an interview.

As a metaphor for this post I'm using the hit Discovery Chanel show “Deadliest Catch”.  On the show whenever a pot comes in, the critters are all given a quick test to determine whether they qualify as “keepers” or if they should be thrown back into the sea. This process all happens with lightning speed, with dozens of crabs being sorted in a matter of minutes.
 
Let's consider why this process goes down so quickly. It's because the fishing season is of limited duration and there are plenty of other ships competing over a limited resource. Put another way, time is limited and therefore “time is money”.
 
Our philosophy here at DC Recruiters is that when job hunters and recruiters interact there is quite a bit of potential for both parties to gain. Recruiters of course, have to meet new people in order to find prospects to potentially fill job openings. Job seekers can use each interaction with a recruiter or hiring manager as an opportunity gather new information.

Recently while doing research online, I stumbled onto an idea. I was checking out the Toastmasters International website, looking at their listings of local clubs in various zip codes, when I noticed something. The first discovery to surprise me was the fact that while the great majority of clubs were open to all, that some Toastmasters Clubs had membership requirements and where usually "sponsored" by a particular company or organization.
 
It makes sense after all, that an institution or company might want to foster effective communication by encouraging some of their members to hone their public speaking skills. My second discovery however was more shocking than my first. After continuing my search I began to realize that there were a great many clubs that where "sponsored" by corporations, which were also open to the public!
 
This revelation hit me like a load of bricks, as an uber-effective networking opportunity. Obviously the idea would be to find a such club, in your area and take up active membership. Of course the idea would not be to land at a meeting the first day and introduce yourself as a desperate job seeker who absolutely must work for their company!

Welcome to DC Recruiters! This is our inaugural post, so we wanted to let you know a little bit about ourselves. This blog will be a collection of posts written with the job seeker in mind. We seek to be a source of relevant and useful information to those seeking jobs in the Washington, DC area.
 
We seek the input of our readers in order to let us know what they find most relevant as well as what areas we should be exploring in the future. We look forward to hearing from you, whether in the form of a comment or an email from our contact-us form.
 
We'd also like to direct you to the main page of our site. This page has links to job recruiters that are active on Twitter. This list has been complied in order to help DC area job hunters who are looking to reach out and connect with recruiters in their industry.