Episode Transcript

Chris Villanueva 00:00
Do this instead of rewriting your resume for every job description. Today we’re going to go into how to tailor your resume for the job description without making yourself go crazy. My name is Chris Villanueva, I’m the founder and CEO of Let’s Eat, Grandma Resume Service. We’ve helped over 11,000 job seekers with our packages and hundreds of thousands more through our free content. And so I hope that this podcast brings you some value today. Listen, I spoke to somebody recently who s they spent 80 hours, 80 fricking hours rewriting the resume over and over again for a job description. I do not want you to do that. In fact, this episode is going to be something that is hopefully going to be a time saver on the other end. I don’t want you to be one of those people who do not tailor their resume for the positions that they’re applying for. There is common ground, there is a middle ground, I should say, in which you can start getting those results without going nuts. So going into the problem here, you know that tailoring is something that is important, but people don’t know how to do it and it’s something that could just be a huge time suck. So this episode’s going to help you to save time and help you to get more effective.

Chris Villanueva 01:24
Little bit of a personal aside here, just wanted to kind of share something going on in my personal life. I have a baby boy coming in two weeks from now. I am so freaking excited. So you may get some guest episodes coming in and subbing in for Chris, but I guarantee you the content here is going to be just as helpful as ever. Just keep me in your thoughts and prayers here. A lot going on and I can’t wait to come back. Now the first thing I’m going to dive into is the heat map method, and then the second thing I will dive into are the keywords that matter. These are two things that should help you to save time here. Now let’s talk about the heat method when it comes to working on your resume. So there’s an average amount of time that recruiters spend.

Chris Villanueva 02:15
I’ve seen the stats thrown around consistently speaking it’s under 30 seconds, but I’ve seen six to seven seconds on average of time spent on your resume when you send it out to applications. When people are looking at your resume for six to seven seconds, they typically are looking at very specific areas. Their eyes are quickly scanning your resume for keywords. Not talking about the bots, but I’m talking about the humans who look and make the decisions on your resume. It is very important. Therefore, as you are tailoring your resume, this is that after tweaking time, after you have a good foundational resume, as you’re tweaking and sending it out to applications, you want to make sure that you focus on the parts that count. I have seen the different areas in which folks will spend time on a resume. These are the typical spots that folks are going to have their eyes glance at the resume when they’re looking at it.

Chris Villanueva 03:20
Of course, we know that if you have a two page resume, you want to spend most of the time focusing on the first page in particular, you want to focus on the top of the first page. So keep that in mind. The other section you really want to pay close attention to is your summary. So what I would say is, number one, the summary as well as the headline on top of the summary should be something that you tweak to spend time on here. Do not rewrite the entire resume. Instead focus on those specific keywords at the top of your summary. I call that a headline as well as the summary itself to make sure that you have language that matches the job description. An example of that might be if you are a data science professional applying for data science positions, and let’s say you are applying for a very specific, let’s say manager, data science manager role.

Chris Villanueva 04:18

Then at the top don’t just include data science professional. Actually include the word data science management or keywords that are oriented towards that position. So something you can say, and again, take this with a grain of salt. Just make sure you do it honestly here, but at the very beginning you could put data science manager or data science professional with X amount of years managing X projects, whatever you want to say here. So just as you visualize what I’m saying, all you have to remember is make sure that the headline and the summary is something that you spend a lot of time focusing on. The second thing I want you to focus on is the very first bullet point of the most recent experience you have. This is one that a lot of people forget because I know it. A lot of people have the very first bullet point as some boring vanilla milk toast description of what they have done.

Chris Villanueva 05:18
Do not do that instead, make sure that yes, it matches the job posting you’re applying for, but also comes out strong with an accomplishment. So you want to make sure you have results oriented language here. So if you are able to, for example, affect a 30% increase in revenue and that’s something that the posting calls for, then make sure that that is your first bullet point. Okay, so heat map method, you are focusing most on your summary, that headline at the top of your summary and the top bullet point of the most recent experience. Now, there are some other things that you should focus on. Of course, I’m not going to go into that for this podcast because I think those three are enough. I think just to really get your job search started or optimized. And I think if everyone here were able to take that advice and run with it, I think that they would see so much more success here.

Chris Villanueva 06:12
Okay, so let’s dive into the next thing, which is the keywords that matter. I want you to focus on the keywords that matter. So as a principal, always make sure to study the language of the job descriptions. Yes, some job descriptions are bogus Bs. That was probably crafted by chat GPT with a very sleepy HR manager who wasn’t paying attention. But I will say that a lot of job descriptions really do give you some hints and clues for the keywords that you should include in your resume here. So I will tell you that the most common ones to focus on, I already alluded to it, are the position titles. The position title according to a statistic, is the most commonly searched keyword for applicant tracking systems. I would say it’s the same thing for somebody reviewing a resume. So make sure to include the position titles as much as possible, and I would repeat them, let’s say two or three times within the resume at least if this is a key position title, and also make sure to include industry specific nouns.

Chris Villanueva 07:20
An example of course that I’ve given in the past is say JavaScript or Python. If you are a software developer, those are industry specific nouns. Ones that I typically do not focus on are soft skills. Things like good communicator, like that stuff’s important, but it is something that I do not think it’s going to make as much of a difference when it comes to the keyword. So make sure to focus on one position titles and two industry specific nouns. So I’m going to keep this episode short because I don’t want you overwhelmed. I don’t want you to think about all the million things to do because I know if you listen to this episode and you knew to focus first and foremost on the summary, the headline and that top bullet point, just as a start and to focus on those position titles and industry specific nouns, you are going to have a big leg up against all the other people competing for those same positions.

Chris Villanueva 08:18
So run with it. Let me know how your job search is going. I’m not the most responsive person on LinkedIn, of course, because we are all spammed with connection requests. But if you’ve let me know in the description or if you’ve let me know in the personalized note when you connect with me that you are a listener, I will most certainly accept, and I would love to hear your feedback on this podcast. Thank you so much for tuning in. I can’t wait to give you an update next week on how things are going with the baby and whatnot. Let’s see, Maybe it comes out next week, maybe it’s three weeks from now. We’ll never know, but I am so excited to have you as a listener and I’ll see you next week.

Chris Villanueva 08:58
Career Warrior Podcast. And before you go, remember, if you’re not seeing the results you want in your job search, our highly trained team of professional resume writers here at, Let’s Eat, Grandma can help head on over to letseatgrandma.com/podcast/ to get a free resume critique and $70 off any one of our resume writing packages. We talk all the time on the show about the importance of being targeted in your job search and with our unique writing process and focus on individual attention, you’ll get a resume cover letter and LinkedIn profile that our highly customized and tailored to your goals to help you get hired faster. Again, head on over to letseatgrandma.com/podcast/ Thanks, and I’ll see you next time.