Get Your Resume Recruiter-Ready With This Trick

A common piece of career advice is to craft a new resume for each job you apply for. This ensures you use the language of the job description, and that your experiences and accomplishments align with the opportunity. But how do you make sure you’ve done this properly?

Well, here's a fun little activity to help you make the most of your social-impact job search...

Create a word cloud of a particular job description by copying and pasting it into a free app online. You'll quickly generate a visualization of the most-used words in the description to include on your resume. (The more frequently certain words are used, the bigger they are in the cloud.)

Here’s mine from a job listing I found on Idealist that was looking for a digital editor:

You can see that some of the biggest words that appear in the cloud are "nonprofit," "managing," and "leadership." On my resume, I made sure to highlight my previous roles in communications at nonprofit organizations, pointing out leadership experience and times I spent managing other writers or interns.

Given that recruiters and hiring managers spend just a few seconds looking at your resume, using the right language and experiences is just one step in getting you closer to landing your dream job.

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by Allison Jones