Simply, keywords are no more than ‘buzzwords’ associated with your industry, speciality or profession. 

Words that convey a specialist skill, knowledge, accomplishment or responsibility.  Keyword scanning is an integral part of a modern job-search and has become a dominant tool in today’s market; you need to integrate appropriate keywords into your CV, cover letter, whatever, in order to ensure that you are not overlooked by any automatic word search.

Which words should be included?  Descriptive words, usually nouns, that that are associated with specific disciplines or industries.   Example?  An experienced engineer looking for a position in power electronics/control might include such words as “BSc (Eng), IGBT, PWM, pulse width modulation, SCR, thyristor, controlled, rectification, conversion, frequency etc.”  Mostly pretty meaningless to anyone outside his particular industry, but almost guaranteed to ensure that this CV pops out on top of any search requiring these particular skills.

The easiest method of determining appropriate keywords is to peruse online postings and newspaper advertisements for positions similar to that for which you are searching.  These will be full of very specific keywords that the recruitment consultant is looking for; inclusion within your CV will guarantee visibility!

With the ever increasing use of keyword search engines to locate only those CVs that are directly relevant to the position in question there are some who state that the CV should have a specific keyword section at the top of the first page, simply listing every keyword you can think of.

When the search engine was capable of looking at just the first hundred words there was, perhaps, some justification for this approach but this is no longer the case and we recommend that keywords are sprinkled throughout the text.

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