Help Search Engines Find Your Resume

In today's job market you've got a lot of competition. Anything that you can do to make your resume stand out and be found by hiring managers could be the difference between finding a job tomorrow or continuing on with the job search. Hiring managers today do most of their talent search on the Web, so it's important to be very visible when they are looking for someone with your qualifications and experience. Thanks to a new emphasis on providing broader search returns (called Universal Search), it's easy to give your resume higher visibility on the Web.

What's Universal Search?

Universal search is a new emphasis by search engines like Google and Yahoo to provide a greater range of search returns during a Web search. For example, in years past, a search return would provide a list of Websites that seem appropriate for the keywords that were entered. Now, thanks to Universal Search, those search returns will have items such as press releases, PDFs, links to books, photos and PowerPoints. These returns try to provide different kind of results that may have added value to the Web searcher.

Put Your Resume on PowerPoint

The trick to using Universal Search to your advantage requires you to do a second version of your resume - on PowerPoint rather than Word. PowerPoint has many design capabilities that Word doesn't have, so that's an immediate bonus. PowerPoint also requires you to shorten your resume to a selection of bullet points that really outline your qualifications quickly.

Post Your Resume on SlideShare

I posted my resume on SlideShare (a free service). After a day had past, I did a search on my name and keywords. My SlideShare resume was at the top of the Google rankings. Doing your resume on PowerPoint is not traditional, and you should still keep a version on Word. However, a PowerPoint resume will help get your resume to the top of Web search rankings.