Resume Tips: Free Online Service to Determine Hot Key Words

By Luann Ladley
We’ve all heard or read about trying to get as many keywords into our resumes as possible to aid in getting our resumes past computer software screening programs. Here’s a great and FUN way to tease out the keywords in a job posting so that you can identify those words to include in your resume. This is the so called “word cloud” images that have been appearing on the web.
In your browser, first you need to copy the job posting text. Once you’ve copied the text, go to one of these websites: Wordle.net. or TagCrowd.com.
Screen shots from Wordle.net:


Once at Wordle click on Create your own. This will open a blank window labeled “Paste in a bunch of text:”  into which you paste the text you copied from the job posting. Hit the “Go” button and you’re on your way to identifying the keywords in that job posting.
At TagCrowd, the home page opens to a blank window labeled “Choose your text source:” Here is where you paste your copy and then hit the “Visualize!” button.
Screen shot from TagCrowd.com:

Once you have your “word cloud” you can play with color, shape, etc., if you want. I chose color since it makes it easier to read and identify important keywords. For both sites, the keywords start with the largest word being the word that appears most often in the job posting and decreasing in size according to how many times that word is mentioned.
You can get a really strong feel for what the employer considers important. If you can incorporate the most important keywords in your resume, you can increase your chances to make it past the computer screening process. If you want, you can paste in the text from your resume and/or your cover letter to compare keywords.
A word of caution: creating these word clouds can be fun and before you know it you’ve created a bunch of word clouds and haven’t been job searching.
Editor’s Note:
If your computer won’t allow you to use Wordl, here are some alternate sites to create word clouds: http://www.tagxedo.com/ or, this site recommends nine free word cloud apps: http://www.smashingapps.com/2011/12/15/nine-excellent-yet-free-online-word-cloud-generators.html
Good luck!