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Building job relationships best way to get foot in door

Baffled because you nailed the qualifications for a job and never heard a word? Peeved because you blew an entire weekend polishing your résumé? Here’s the likely truth: No one ever saw it.

“The first thing that job seekers have to get over is that it’s not personal,” says Gerry Crispin, a recruiting technology expert. “The chance when you apply for a job that someone actually sees your résumé is probably less than 5 percent.”

Less than a decade ago, job applicants obsessed over whether to use white or ivory paper for a résumé.

Now, you must “impress” a computer programmed to eliminate you.

And while the goal is to lighten the load on humans in human resources, executive recruiter Susan Smith says today’s hiring hoops frustrate firms as much as applicants.

“The Internet is wonderful, but it’s this giant blob of information that corporate recruiters have to deal with. The whole process has become overwhelming. They have to weed through e-mails and attachments and online résumés and paper résumés and job boards on the Web.

“There are too many people applying for too many jobs in too many ways.”

That being said, networking (as in talking to folks, not linking computer systems) is the best strategy for boosting your rank.

“Never, ever apply without first getting someone in the company to refer you,” says Crispin, who analyzes how businesses recruit online. “One out of every three hires has been referred by an employee.

“We live in a networked world, and if you haven’t heard of MySpace or an alumni directory or a professional association, then you’ve obviously been living in a cave.”

Hiring managers set up an online search request to sniff out keywords, such as those used in the job description, along with other identifying factors. For example, the desired accounting candidate must be a Vanderbilt grad with a grade-point average above 3.5 who now lives in ZIP code 27858.

Kathryn Troutman runs The Résumé Place in Baltimore, Md., and wrote The Federal Résumé Guidebook. “I analyze the target announcement and look for the top five to seven skills: Adviser, briefing manager, project manager, PowerPoint developer and so forth.

“Then I look at the résumé. If the résumé doesn’t hit the top skills, the applicant basically missed the point because they didn’t read the announcement close enough. I teach people how to integrate the skills into their résumé so it will come up in the system.”

Five tips
How to boost your chances of having a computer rank you in the top of the applicant pool so that a recruiter will read your résumé and refer you to a hiring manager:
# Include the name of an employee to show that you’ve networked with potential colleagues. One in every three hires at Fortune 500 companies was referred by an employee.
# Use keywords from the job description, such as “special education,”"”project manager” and “multimedia skills.” Other keywords involve degrees, certifications, licenses, computer programs and operating systems, job titles, course titles and industry jargon.
# Avoid slapping a chunk of keywords at the top of your résumé. A “keyword summary” used to be popular, but now employers say they’d rather see those words in brief paragraphs outlining your work history.
# Update posted résumés on Web job boards frequently because employers search for the most recent candidates.
# Send a scannable résumé (if you can’t submit a résumé through a Web site or e-mail, which is usually preferred) by using plain white paper with no borders, shading or graphics. Avoid paragraph indents because they may not line up properly after scanning, and don’t use boldfacing, italics and underlining.