Resume Words


Resume Words. Best Resume Keywords. Importance of Resume Keyword and how to find the most effective keywords.

Importance of Resume Keywords

With ever limited time, employers rely heavily on keywords to help decide if you are a good match for the company. For them, keywords are the main indicators of whether you have the skills, expertise and experience that would make you a valuable asset on the team.

Resume Keywords

Every industry has its specialized choice of keywords. For the computing industry, it may be words such as ‘expertise in UNIX’, ‘LAN/WAN’, ‘network system administration’, ‘SMTP-based email’.

Position titles also tend to come with many synonyms. While you may be interested in the position of ‘purchasing division manager’, your employers may be searching for keywords such as ‘materials manager’, ‘logistics manager’ or ‘supply chain manager’. Since employers and headhunters search vast resume databases to help locate job matches quickly, you should include all possible synonyms of your desired job position in your resume.

Finding the right keywords

Trying to think of all the possible resume keywords on your own would be difficult, and certainly not the best way to make sure you have covered the many possible variations. Instead, turn to the best sources of keywords – the job advertisements posted by the employers themselves. Examples of where you could find these:

  • Classified advertisements
  • Company’s formal job description of its open positions
  • Career web sites – monster.com, career builder.com, bizweb.com; read the advertised job
  • descriptions posted by different recruiting firms
  • Professional association’s publications – newsletters, magazines, conference transcripts

Your first employment entry is especially important. The more keyword matches you have here, the more likely your employers will shortlist you immediately.


Return from Resume Words to Write Good Resume