Times have changed, and so has the way recruiters have been getting resumes. Job search sites cost lots of money for recruiters and companies. When companies cut costs, search memberships get kicked. How can you adapt your resume for the new way recruiters will find you?

CareerBuilder is the job search leader, so I’ll use it for examples.  Currently, CareerBuilder charges $469.00 for 1 job posting with a company logo. One year of enterprise-level resume searches will cost a company $9,553. Twenty jobs with logo gets you a discount – $6,800. Want a microsite to go with your postings? $2,160. If you’re a CFO and someone tells you could save $18,513 this year, would you listen?

So what’s the solution for companies looking to cut recruiting costs? Google searches. Using specific syntax in Google searches, companies can find qualified candidates. So how do you prep your resume for recruiter Web searches? Can’t you just post your Microsoft Word resume and be done? NO! Resumes need optimization tweaks just like real Web pages.

Where Are You?

I’ve noticed a steady increase in the number of searches for my resume using Google. Many times recruiters look for candidates in certain area codes or cities. Make sure your location is at the top of your resume. You don’t have to post your address, but your city / state name and phone number should be at the top. Information at the top of pages is given more relevance in search results, so put it there.

Place a bulleted profile list highlighting popular phrases it the top of your resume above jobs and job descriptions. Google will give these more weight and it will make your resume more attractive to recruiters as well since it will save them from having to read your whole resume to get a feel for your skills and experience. For example, “Certified project manager for Fortune 500 companies.”

Where Have You Been?

Based on the fact that location based searches are popular, make sure you list cities and states for past jobs. If you are willing to relocate, that will help you because your resumes will probably come up for searches of several locations. For me, my cell phone has a California area code, but I live in Texas. So I get contacted for positions in both states.

Besides states, recruiters search for companies you might have worked for before, or are already working at so as to snag you for a competitor. Help them find you. List all the company names you worked for, including subdivisions and conglomerate owners. Here’s an example of a recruiter search for me that got them to my site:

filetype:doc resume and nissan and software and michigan

So what do we make of it? This recuiter was looking for software resumes online in Microsoft Word format, with experience at Nissan and experience in Michigan. My resume came up because I did work for Nissan at one point in my career, I did work in software, and my resume has some relation to Michigan because I designed a Web site for the University of Michigan Business School. So it wasn’t an exact fit, but you see the possibilities with the right keywords and places in your resume.

What Do You Do?

Like a regular print resume, you need to put your skills and software skills on your online resume. Be specific. Recruiters are looking for very specific skills and software packages. Take this recruiter search that landed them on my resume:

(intitle:resume OR inurl:resume OR intitle:cv OR inurl:cv OR intitle:vitae OR inurl:vitae OR intitle:homepage OR inurl:homepage) “web developer” (ca OR california) (sql and EKTRON and c# and .net)

This is a very specific search. Look at what’s defined. A position, a location, and specific software skills. If you knew how to use content management systems (CMS) for updating Web pages and you put that on your resume this search  would have missed you. That’s because EKTRON is a specific type of CMS. So ideally you should put broad terms that define your skills and software as well as very narrow terms. If you were a project manager, you would have the phrase “project manger” on your resume with all types of specific project management software such as Microsoft Project, Visio, and others.

Are You on the Map of the Web?

Like I mentioned in a previous post, Quit Looking for a Job – How to Use Web 2.0 to Get Found, your resume and the Web site it’s hosted on need to have good content to give it credibility with search engines. Given two equal resumes online, the one listed higher will be the one with more credibility with Google. I posted some SEO resources to help you with this task. If a recruiter typed in keywords to find your resume, do you come up in search results? Try it. And if you don’t, tweak your resume and Web site until you do.

Use a professional networking service like LinkedIn to steer recruiters and companies to your professional profile and resume. You can post links in your LinkedIn profile, so be sure to do so and mention in your profile you have an online resume. Make sure you post a photo to help you get noticed. You are a real person, right?

Over here!

Tough times call for a solid resume. They call for a Web 2.0 resume posted on your own Web site or blog. Your resume doesn’t necessarily need to be tech related, it just needs Web 2.0 marketing behind it to highlight you. Show them who’s the boss.