Résumés have become the business card of the job search. Each day terabytes of data is transferred over the Internet to corporations by individuals looking for the right break. The Job Seekers' goals are to impress employers, but what are the employers really looking for in their candidates? Are their methods of assessing candidates right and unbiased? You will find unlimited articles on this beaten-up subject over the Internet. I am not going to offer you anything different, the information you will read here is something JID staff has put together over time with their experience in searching and supplying employers with millions of resumes during their six years in the Middle East. Information below might be beneficial for you, or it could be something you might already know and use it for your successful job searches.
Resume Layout And Design
Back to the résumé; job agencies or employers would have you think your resume goes into a database when you send it across, well it does, but not quiet the way you would imagine it. All résumés in the mail are scanned using optical character-recognition software. This program runs the employer round about $10,000 to $85,000 USD. It simply translates the codes assigned by the clerk that scans the documents identifying the position that is being sought. It sorts your qualifications and information relevant to the organization's need. The scanned résumé is then electronically stored on a database. Here is where the age old question is left unanswered. How reliable is this software that decides my fate? What font size should I use so that my resume can be easily found? Can I send in multiple résumés to improve my chances?
At this juncture, the best possible answer to that would be to focus immensely on online recruitment agencies that you know are reputable and have employers search key words online instead of crummy software being used on your resume that you are unaware of. The disadvantages of software that uses optical-character scans are that they eliminate applications that don't fit a particular profile, and also preclude the consideration of qualified candidates because they didn't use the right keywords in their resume or application material.
Even though pricy new technologies and hiring tools might have solved this dilemma, it would still demand human intervention when performing sorting and categorizing and with that comes cost and a turnaround time. Important factors such as these have led the Traditional Recruiters leaning more towards agencies with online capabilities for assistance. Online agencies such as ours wouldn't have advanced as much if it were not for Traditional Recruitment Agencies that give us the bulk of the business.
That way the key words would not escape a search request provided you filled a form while registering that had text boxes to add your résumé contents. To prove this theory right you can search the Jobs In Dubai website using this link http://www.jobsindubai.com/candidate_search.asp Try options such as "Name" or "Professionals" and then search for a word, for e.g. a name, the search results would display exactly what you type in the search box, provided these words do exist. I have even tried searching for a "Cat" with no pun intended. The search results exhibits every candidates profiles with the word CAT in sequence from categories such as Pharmacists, Financial Analysts and so on.
While it is common knowledge you must have a résumé before you make overtures to a website, but what would you like to have highlighted depends upon the criteria determined ahead of time. I can speak from my personal experience where we were in search of a Treasury Manager that was to be considered in one of the Emirates prominent Oil and Gas companies. Since this position paid AED 29,000 and it was also advertised on more than one medium, it was up for grabs by any and every recruiter that asserted himself as guru.
This position took 15 days to fill and Jobs In Dubai was the first agency to submit four potential candidates before any other agency sorted our résumés. How did we do it? Very simple, we searched the resume content for only the word "Treasury" and it was all done online. The search sorted out over three million resumes to find 200 potential candidates that have highlighted this word in their objective which was then singled out by our database query. This word was reiterated many times by those four resumes and it also highlighted pertinent experience and education and all that could hardly be missed.
My point here is to explain to you how important it is to have relevant keywords in your résumé. You must only put words that best describes what you are looking for and providing an agency a "general" resume would only minimize your chances of getting hired. Focus on "your" word.
Q. How important are my objectives?
Answer. Well how important is a job for you?
Objective is chief, and the only way an employer can compare you to job postings in less time. It sets you apart from every meaningless résumé that uses vague statements such as “Seeking a position that uses my skills and experience,"
But writing objectives can be tricky. Make sure you fit the job you are applying for. Think of it as someone looking at a map. The objective dumped in a paragraph must lead them somewhere, which in your case would be relevant experience and education expressed, working in conjunction with the "word" in your objective.
Technologies And What's Cool
If you are emailing a résumé to a company PDF's might not be the best choice when attaching it to an email because of the size restrictions for many email clients. I wouldn't recommend PDF unless you are sure your employer is using Yahoo, MSN or Google Aps – that is my personal favorite. One of the newer methods used in recent years have been personal websites and links to them, or blogs and even Word Press at many instances. Minor disadvantages to complete failure would comprise of issues such as, website down, blogs with personal messages, ad banners on free hosted portals that can come in the way of your message etc,. I have also seen Flash Paper used for a résumé, although cool, but it might not be browser friendly on certain older Internet Explorer browsers especially if active X is disabled because of a company's strict security code.
Action Words
Here is a list of some action words you might want to use on your objective and experience.
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For more advise on resumes and resume creation. You can check out one of our paid services called the Gold Member located at this link http://www.jobsindubai.com/goldmember.asp or email accepted@jobsindubai.com
