Resume Keywords: How to Find and Use Them to Land Interviews

RisenResume · 7 min read

A keyword on a resume is simply a word or phrase that an employer, or their screening software, is looking for. Get the keywords right and your resume rises to the top of the pile. Get them wrong and a strong candidate can be filtered out for a weak reason.

Here is how to find the right keywords for any role and use them so your resume reads naturally, not stuffed.

Where resume keywords come from

You do not guess keywords. You take them from the job description, because that is the exact language the employer chose. The posting tells you the skills, tools, qualifications and responsibilities that matter for this role. Those are your keywords.

How to find the keywords in a job ad

1. Read the job description twice. The first read for the gist, the second with a highlighter.
2. Mark every hard skill: tools, software, certifications, methods, for example Excel, Salesforce, project management, registered nurse.
3. Mark the repeated phrases. If a phrase appears more than once, it matters to the employer.
4. Mark the responsibilities, the action phrases like "manage budgets" or "lead a team".
5. Note the job title itself and common variations of it.

Use only the keywords that are true

This is the rule that protects you. Only use a keyword if you can honestly back it up in an interview. Keyword matching gets you read, but the interview is where the truth comes out. Aim for an honest, strong match, never an invented one.

Place keywords where they count

Spread your keywords naturally across three places:

• Your summary: two or three of the most important terms, in real sentences.
• Your skills section: the hard skills and tools, as a clean list.
• Your experience bullets: the responsibilities and achievements, each tied to a real result.

Do not keyword stuff

Repeating a keyword ten times does not help and reads badly to a human. Use each important term once or twice, in context, where it is genuinely true. Quality of match beats quantity every time.

Match a different set of keywords for every application

One generic resume sent to twenty jobs matches none of them well. The candidates who get interviews tailor the keywords to each posting. It takes a few minutes per application and it is the single highest return habit in a job search.

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