I know we're all very busy people, so I'll keep this brief, but I've noticed a trend that I'd like to share with the community that should prove helpful to anybody actively looking for that perfect next step down the career path.

As a recruiter focusing on banking roles, I see THOUSANDS of resume each week. All types, too-- good resumes, bad resumes, BAAAAD resumes, and tech resumes. This article isn't directed at any particular resume style or preferred formatting per se. Rather, I would like to talk about the lowly skills section.

20-30 years ago the skills section was an afterthought. The thinking went that a good summary was all a candidate needed-- it summed up experience and simply stated the desired career track/type of company being targeted. Then "sub-bullets" and "proficiency grids" became all the rage.

Well, it's the 21st century, and it's important to realize that your resume will be shared electronically. Whether interdepartmentally, on a job board, or email submissions, it's crucial to think about this document as, well, NOT a document. It's a searchable file.

For example, every time I receive a resume I will open it up and immediately hit "ctrl + F" and search the resume for any buzzword or phrase for which I am currently recruiting.

Likewise, the job boards (Monster, CareerBuilder, Indeed, etc.) use a simple algorithm that similarly searches the content of each resume in their database and returns ones that contain only the terminology being searched for by the recruiter/hiring manager.

The skills section is a data dump. Any software application, platform, CRM, proprietary software, license, etc. that you have worked with or currently possess should be plainly listed in a stand-alone skills section, in addition to being peppered throughout the body of the document.

When I wrap up interviews I share the "Google Example" with my candidates: Job boards are like Google. A recruiter rarely looks at candidates on page 5 of resume results, we want those folks who show up in the first 5 results.

Think about it, do you ever go past the first page of results when you conduct a Google search? of course not, and the job boards work the same way.

Like I said, I want to keep this short and sweet, and I hope this information was helpful. If you take my advice, you're one step closer to optimizing your resume the way SEO firms optimize companies' search rankings. Happy hunting!