JEM Consulting - Help For Self Employed and Small Business Web Site Owners

A Word (also called a Tag cloud or a Weighted List) is a visual depiction of the text given a weighting factor.  It is generally single words used on a Web site with the most emphasized words in a larger size or even a different color.  According to Wikipedia:  “This format is useful for quickly perceiving the most prominent terms and for locating a term alphabetically to determine its relative prominence.”

The procedure to formulate a word cloud is rather easy:

• Copy text from a Web site or a document
• Drop into a Word Cloud generator
• Start the process
• Edit various parameters – language, font, color, layout, etc.

The results vary by generator and I will give you some sources after I explain the importance in job search.  I found three for those of you who really want to drill into the difficult process of actively looking for a job in a very difficult market and gain an ‘edge’ over your competition.  These tools allow you to copy the text from:

1. a company’s landing page to see what they emphasize,
2. a posted job opening (i.e. on LinkedIn) and do likewise, or
3. your own resume or cover letter.

With any or all of these applications you may be thus able to ‘talk’ the language of the company you are targeting, either on your resume or cover letter or through the interviewing process.  Familiarity and sounding like the company may just give you an edge.

I captured the text from my WordPress page on this blog and used it as an example for the following Word Cloud Generators:

Wordle

The second is from ABCYa a site for educational games for kids.

There are several other Word Cloud generator sites out there, some of which I may be adding here.   Please let me know if you find any you would like me to add, or more importantly, how you used this concept to aid in your job search or in finding a job!

July 16, 2011.  I found a wonderful slide show presentation by Sabrina Baker on her site, hrchatterbox.com.  It presents another slant on what you can all gain from using Word Clouds for your resume and cover letters in job search, and I suggest you check it out as well.  BTW Sabrina accepted my invitation to connect on LinkedIn; that’s how I found this jewel.  Expand your Network!