Scouring the internet, reading job descriptions, and applying to agriculture jobs is all a part of the job hunting experience. You may also post your resume on LinkedIn or job boards, like AgHires.com, hoping an ag recruiter or hiring manager will find it and contact you. But just like you’re spending hours searching online for jobs, recruiters are searching for resumes of quality candidates that match their job. So how do you find each other?
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Have you heard of the term “Search Engine Optimization” or “SEO”? If you haven’t, it’s essentially the keywords websites include on their pages to get ranked on search engines. Just like SEO is important for websites to be found by the right people, it’s also important for your resume to be found online. Follow these tips to get your resume found by the right recruiter.
Keywords in Your Resume
The basics of SEO rely on keywords. If a website doesn’t have the correct words and phrases someone would search, it won’t be found. The same is true for your resume. If you’re posting your resume on job websites, like AgHires.com, it’s important to have the correct keywords that match you’re the ag job you’re looking for. Recruiters use keywords to search these sites for resumes that match the opening they’re trying to fill.
To figure out which keywords to include, search through job descriptions of your ideal job. Find the important keywords that make the job stand out and include them in your resume. If your official job titles don’t match the job title you’re looking to gain or are not industry-standard titles, work those keywords somewhere in your list of responsibilities naturally. You can also include both your official job title and the industry-standard job title. Read more about job titles in your resume.
Include Your Location
Another way ag recruiters search for candidates is by location. You always want to include your city and state, especially if you don’t want to relocate. If you don’t include a location, recruiters may overlook you. If you’re open to relocating, be sure to include that keyword in your resume, LinkedIn profile, or job seeker profile as well. If you’re only willing to move to specific areas or locations, make sure to include that list to show in those searches.
Make Important Information Stand Out
When agriculture recruiters are searching databases for candidates, they’re skimming through sometimes hundreds of resumes. Make your job titles stand out. It will help your resume stand out more and encourage the recruiter to spend a little more time. If the job title does give enough information, try adding a little more detail. For example, change your title to “Fertilizer Sales Representative” rather than just “Sales Representative.”
Get Rid of the Fluff
You don’t need all the extra fluff in your resume. Streamline the content of your resume by removing generic phrases, like “great communicator” or “motivated self-starter.” You want to show those qualities in your resume, not just state them. Also, use action words like “supervised” or “advised” instead of passive phrases like “was responsible for.” Use numbers, the hard data, to show your accomplishments. Share the amount you saved the company or how much you’ve increased your sales. Prioritize your hard skills, like technical skills and credentials, over the soft skills, like being a “team player” or a “self-starter.” The hard skills are what's going to get the recruiter's attention when skimming your resume.
Ensuring you have a brief, highly effective resume with the right keywords will help ag recruiters find your resume more easily and entice them to give you a closer look. Include your keywords in your LinkedIn profile and post your resume across several job boards, like AgHires.com, to become searchable to recruiters and hiring managers. You might get lucky and your dream job might just come to you. But in the meantime, search for jobs here and sign up for AgHires Job Alerts, to keep up on new jobs in agriculture, food production, biotechnology, and more.
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