The job market, though improving is still quite rough. Competition is high due to the massive amounts of people who are unemployed and the small amount of companies that are actively hiring. Fortunately for those involved in search engine or some type of online marketing, our industry has been one of the least affected by the economic downturn.
Due to the ability to directly equate ad spend to conversions and the growth in search engine use and the exponential growth of social media companies, the interactive marketing field has continued to hire. Many companies have also began moving to hiring in house SEM or SEO employees which has also created more jobs.
Crafting a resume to get your foot in the door for a SEM or SEO position requires a different approach then creating a normal marketing resume. Hiring managers at agencies and larger companies look for specific items within your resume.
Here are a few tips that can help you get that first interview:
Include Numbers: SEO and SEM people are number and results driven by default, so when crafting your resume make sure to include specifics related to the performance of the campaigns you have ran.
Example One: Instead of saying “Created and optimized PPC campaign to drive high converting traffic to website” say something like “Created and optimized PPC campaigns to increase overall traffic by 12% and increase revenue generating conversions by 15%”.
Example Two: Instead of saying “Built out multiple landing pages and ran multivariate testing” say something like “Created multiple landing pages and ran multivariate testing which lead to an overall increase of $150,000 in revenue.”
List The Tools You Have Used: Hiring managers want to know the person they are hiring have experience with a wide range of tools and can come in and share their expertise with the rest of the team. So if you have used SEOMoz’s SEO Tools or ClickEquations PPC software make sure to list this on your resume. Past trends would suggest you to list items like Powerpoint or Microsoft Office Suite on your resume but that won’t get you very far for a SEO or SEM position. Instead lists items like the analytics packages you are familiar with using (Omniture, Google Analytics etc) or the PPC interfaces you have used. (Adwords, MSN Ad Center etc.)
List Your Certifications: There are many certifications available to Search Marketing professionals such as SEMPO and Adwords Certifications. Having these on your resume provides some credibility to the rest of your resume and shows that you have a working knowledge of the field. If you are attempting to transition into the search marketing field for a new career taking the initiative to get certifications can show you are serious about the industry and have taken inititive.
Include Links To Your Professional Social Media Profiles: If a potential employer is considering you for an open position you can bet that they will do a background check, at the very least they will use your name as a query on Google and visit a few of your profiles. In order to be proactive you should place links to your LinkedIn profile or if you maintain a professional website a link to that as well. This can provide your potential employer with a deeper look into your background and the work you have accomplished. The key to this is to provide links to professional sites, do not link to embarrassing photos on Facebook.
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Good post. Article mentioned very good points which are very helpful. Thanks for sharing your idea.Keep it up.
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