Marketing · free guide

How to tailor your resume for a SEO Specialist role

A screener on an SEO Specialist posting has the most skeptical read in marketing, because everyone claims rankings and few can show a number with a timeframe. Tailoring means citing traffic gains with baselines and matching the posting's focus. That match, more than any other line on the page, decides whether this resume gets a second look.

Four moves for this posting
  1. Cite traffic gains with a timeframe and a baseline, matching any growth language in the posting; a percentage without a baseline invites the exact suspicion this role is trying to avoid.
  2. Separate technical work from content work, crawl fixes and schema versus briefs and on-page, matching the posting's own split; specialist means knowing which lever you personally pulled.
  3. Name your tools with a use case attached, matching any platform the posting lists; a tool name without a use case reads as a login, not a skill.
  4. Move a technical fix above content-only bullets when the posting emphasizes technical SEO; matching the posting's own emphasis is the fastest way through this screen.
The fact behind this

Most ATS software ranks and filters resumes for humans to read. It does not silently reject them. (how applicant tracking systems actually work)

Before you tailor anything

Start with the version a recruiter opens right now, then make these moves against it.

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