So often we focus on how we can find and chase opportunities, but wouldn’t it be great if opportunities found and chased us? We need to balance both equally and learn how to be found online, and today I will show you one way you can make that happen.

This blog originated from a video that’s posted on my YouTube Channel; here’s a quick link to this video if you’d rather watch it: https://youtu.be/umhw8-Tygr4

In my last article I talked about how to build a better Linkedin Profile as one of the things you can do when you’re having a bad day. If you didn’t see it, just look for my article, “No Bad Days in Job Search”, posted on my LinkedIn profile or here on the blog.

In that article I briefly mentioned that it’s important to save your resume with the word “resume” and your job title in the name of the document, and today I’ll show you why that’s so important.

Every single day recruiters are pro-actively searching for people, instead of just waiting for people to apply to their jobs.

One way we do that is through Advanced Search Strings. I remember giving a presentation about how to do this back in 2003, if that gives you any idea how much of a staple this is within the recruiting industry and how long we’ve been doing this.

If you your resume is posted online, like on your own website for example, or in a user group, or on a social site, or even with your University, it’s possible to help those recruiters find it. Advanced search strings can actually allow recruiters to find your resume, even if we aren’t members of those private user groups or social sites, which is why we keep doing this even today.

Although I can’t explain all of the why’s and how’s of this without making this a 10,000 word article, I will show you what we do and let it spark some ideas for you. We start by going to Google.com to run a search.

First I’ll type, “~resume”, which means I’m looking for the word resume in the title of the document, or in the the domain (i.e. the url, or website address).

Then I’ll put what I’m looking for, “SQL Server” for example.

I follow that with the state I’m searching (Illinois | IL), and I will spell it out and abbreviate it so both will come up in my results. I use parentheses with a pipe between the words so my results will include either option; the pipe symbol just means OR.

After that I’ll specify a bunch of words I DON’T want to come up in my results. To exclude those words I put a minus sign in front of them. Words I don’t want to see are words like Jobs, Apply, Submit, Sample (for sample resumes), or Benefits. These are all common words on job postings and I don’t want to see postings, I want to find resumes, and these parameters will reduce the number of job postings I find.

Lastly, I’ll specify the file type, and run the search. Always be sure to use Google’s search tools to see the most recent results. (to SEE how this is done, I recommend you watch the video of this at https://youtu.be/umhw8-Tygr4)

Here’s what the completed search string will look like:

~resume “SQL Server” (Illinois | IL) (-Jobs -Apply -Submit -Sample -example -Benefits) (filetype:pdf | filetype:doc)

Why am I showing you how recruiters find resumes?

Simple, I want you to figure out if YOUR resume would come up in the search results for a recruiter who’s searching for you?

Is the word “Resume” in your document title? If not, we won’t find you. Are any of the words I’m trying to exclude from my search results anywhere on your resume? If so, we won’t find you. We may find you eventually, but you need to hope we keep looking after we’ve called all of the other people who DID optimize their resumes and who we did find online. Again, thousands of recruiters across the country are running these searches every single day.

The days of writing a beautiful looking resume and printing it out on ivory colored paper are over. In today’s market, SEO – Search Engine Optimization – is the equivalent of yesterday’s ivory colored paper. You can still make your resume stand out, but the game has changed, so we need to adjust.

In my next article I’ll show you how to flip this around to use advanced search strings to help you find hidden jobs. Be sure to subscribe to this blog so you don’t miss it.

So many people see the title of this strategic job search website “SpeedUpMyJobSearch.com” and respond with, “I don’t want to rush to find a position, I want to find the right fit.” But it’s not about rushing or carelessly hurrying, it’s about taking a smarter approach and being strategic in your search, like by optimizing your resume properly as described above.

Taking a smarter approach tends to lead to faster results, and is precisely why we named our site SpeedUpMyJobSearch.com.

If a fisherman who was fishing with one pole suddenly found a way to fish with 16 poles simultaneously, would his chances of catching a fish sooner be better or worse? Would the quality of the fish he catches be worse because he’s using more poles? Of course not.

What if he said, “You don’t understand, there’s 1 specific fish I’m hoping to catch in this lake, so I’m just going to use this one fishing pole instead of 16.” How do you go about telling him that he can still catch that same fish, but much faster, by using more fishing poles? That’s a question I’m faced with every day when I talk with job seekers who insist on just clicking the apply button and blasting out cold resumes to land their next job, and I’m still searching for the right answer.

If you’ve been fishing for your next job for more than a month and you’re getting frustrated, or even scared, please know there are ways to put many more lines in the water immediately. The strategy shared in this article is just one of many, many more options you have available. There are also multiple ways to make the bait you’re using attract more bites, WITHOUT having to publicly announce it and make it seem like you’re desperately looking for a job. It’s proven to work for many numerous people already; just read through all of the recommendations on my LinkedIn profile or the testimonials throughout this site to see for yourself.

Follow me on LinkedIn or this blog to learn more strategies. Or, if you want a system that gives you all the fishing poles immediately, join our community today.

Job Search doesn’t always mean that YOU are the one doing the searching. You can help them find you. Try optimizing your online resume today. You can do this. It’s time to get to work.