How to Develop Keywords and Why You Should Use Them

Text from a Recruiting Advertisement

Accountant

We are seeking Accountants to provide financial service support to the Department of Transportation, FAA.
Duties Include:
Maintain accounting operations for accounts payable and accounts receivable activity, collections, transfers of costs.
Identify and analyze problems that occur in the processing of recording transactions
Collect and analyze data, applying accounting policies and procedures to record routine transactions.
Reconcile general ledgers.
Review transactions posted by Accounting Clerks and recommend changes.
Prepare routine and special reports.

Must have a 4 year accounting degree and two years experience.
MS Excel
MS Access
Oracle and Delphi experience a plus

Keywords (Some Selected from the Advertisement)

MS Excel
MS Access
Oracle
Delphi
Accounting degree
transaction analysis
reconciled general ledgers
process analysis
account supervision
accounts receivable
accounts payable
collections

Why Use Keywords?

The business world has moved to computers and databases. Our recruiters have little time to handle faxes and hard copies of resume information—hard copies have to be categorized and filed, then found again. If your resume information is in electronic form, the recruiter can put transfer it into a database and then use a search engine to find it. The keywords cut through the data smog.

Five Ways to Get Your Resume in Front of Your Target

1. In Person—The most effective way to submit your cover letter and resume is to do it in person. That is why you want to work with AA Temps. We provide you with the interviews.
2. Facsimile (Fax)— still popular but may arrive illegible or blurred. Hard copies have to be handled, indexed, and stored.
3. e-Mail—second worst way, because many employers have anti-spam filters or do not open a resume attachment for fear of a computer virus.
4. US Mail—The worst way to send your resume because it is delivered to your target company with junk mail and bills, then gets sorted by someone, piles up with the other resumes in someone's in-box, and may sit for a long time before being opened.
5. AA Temps On-Line Form—this is a pared-down version of your resume and allows our recruiters to 1. Review the information quickly, and 2. Keep and easily access the data in our current database. We still ask you to attach your resume

Other Tips

Cover letter—Keep it simple, keep it brief e.g., salary details, reasons for job change, one or two relevant past performance descriptions. Keep the cover letter separate from the resume—include it in the body an email.

Job Title—Find the exact job title listed in the posting and include it in the e-Mail subject matter line or on the fax cover sheet.

Use MS Word—the most widely accepted form.

Salary—“negotiable” doesn't help. Use a salary range—and keep the spread between two and five thousand dollars per year.

Objective—Do not use an "Objective."

References—Do not provide references or use "upon request." References come later.

Keywords—extract the keywords from the job description into a single list of keywords. Pack those keywords into your resume. We even recommend putting them in a separate box or table and titling them "Keywords."