Last month I attended the Downtown campus Career Fair and it was a great opportunity for students to interact with potential employers and to ask candid questions. I am specifically interested in federal employment so I talked with the representative from the FBI. She was very helpful in answering general topics with regard to federal employment as well as the best ways to get noticed when applying for a job through the federal employment clearinghouse, usajobs.gov.
The best piece of advice she gave me is that the HR system actually looks for keywords within an applicants answers to the questions during the application process. Specifically she mentioned that keywords in the “Qualifications” section of the vacancy announcement are what they aim for. Her advice was to incorporate those keywords from the qualifications section into my answers, that way I could get the HR system to flag my application for review by an actual human.
Even if I don’t get a job with the FBI this one piece of information could be the difference between my application being looked at versus being thrown in the trash heap with everyone else’s.
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That's the not first time I've heard that advice. A recruiter I know with Maricopa County said the same thing when her and I spoke at Prof. Duke's undergrad capstone class. This is why its important to tailor your cover letter and resume to each individual position you're applying for.
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