Fake job postings have been around for a long time, even before the Internet. But high unemployment and a trend toward digital job listings has this crime on the rise. The FBI has been collecting a high volume of fake job posting reports since 2019, including reports of an average loss of $3,000 per victim. Cyber criminals use fake websites or emails to steal personal information and compromise a person’s identity. Here are five ways to spot a fake job posting and avoid getting scammed.

Many people believe that remote work became a trend in response to the Coronavirus pandemic. While the need to shelter in place certainly got more companies on board with the idea of work-from-home, the truth is that remote work has been on the rise for a long time. According to a study by Flex Jobs and Global Workplace Analytics, there was a 159 percent increase in remote work from 2005 to 2017. Today, 62 percent of employees age 22 to 65 work remotely at least on occasion.

Now that remote work has become more accepted and common, many professionals are wondering how to break into emerging remote job markets, whether geographically or based on their industry. Here’s what job seekers and recent graduates need to know about remote work and how to build a career you love while at home.

Emerging Remote Work Careers and Industries

According to MarketWatch, there are at least 20 job titles and career fields that have seen an uptick in remote work listings since the start of 2020. Here are a few of the most popular work-from-home job titles growing this year:

            Accountant: The Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts that the need for accountants will grow 10 percent by 2026.

            Engineer: From aerospace to software to roads and infrastructure, engineers design the machines, equipment, and environment that inform our lives.

            Teacher: With online K-12 schools growing in popularity even before the pandemic, it’s possible to fully build a teaching or tutoring career from your own home.

            Nurse: Telehealth and other advancements in technology have created greater demand for nurses to remotely conference with patients and answer their questions.

            Writer/Editor: Demand for online content marketing is also on the rise, with this sector expected to grow 6 percent by 2026.

            Program/Project Manager: These professionals guide the success of a project from beginning to end, coordinating success even outside the office.

            Business Development/Sales: From entry level opportunities to sales and business development managers, these professionals help businesses grow.

            Web Developer/Designer: The tech industry in general is especially full of opportunity for remote workers, including coders and designers for software and the web.

How to Get a Remote Job

One key to landing a remote job you love is determining what really motivates you and finding the company culture and position to match. Though a majority of people would prefer to work from home some of the time, only 12 percent of people want to work from home all the time. This means hybrid positions or roles with an opportunity to spend some time with colleagues in-person could be right for you.

Plus, even a remote job might still have some limits based on your geography. Even though remote work empowers professionals to work anywhere, a lot of remote positions do still require state-specific residency or licensing, depending on the industry.

If you’re looking for a remote job, there are many great remote work job boards that can help you focus on a specific industry or role. Whether you want to start a freelance business or find a full-time role, the time has never been better to take control of your work environment and future. We wish you the best of luck. We also encourage you to rely on the connections of the Alpha Kappa Psi network for advice, connections, and support. Even from a distance, we are cheering you on!

When graduates begin applying for those much-anticipated first jobs out of college, much emphasis centers on the resume. This is often seen as the holy grail for recruiters, and certainly dominates the online community’s efforts to help graduates land that all-important interview with their dream company. But it’s important to remember how big a role cover letters could play in making you stand out as an applicant. These additional, yet not always required, documents help you speak about yourself in a compelling, original way.

However, just like with resumes, we see a lot of common do’s and don’ts in the cover letter templates that are found online. So let’s look at the three best and three worst cover letter trends for 2020.

The Do’s of Cover Letters in 2020

1. Match the tone and verbiage of your resume. Your resume will likely be the first time that a job poster, as a company and the employer, will engage with you. While cover letters are a chance to be more personal, you’ll want to avoid slipping into an informal tone. Additionally, your cover letter should only reference the experience or skills you listed on your resume.This includes matching skills and professional experience. You can reflect on your resume and use it to guide your cover letter’s approach. What makes you most excited about the opportunity to work for this company? Which of the skills or experience on your resume matches up to those expectations? Highlight these as much as you can.

1. Tailor made is always the way to go. One of the biggest mistakes that applicants make in writing cover letters is to use the same one for every job in a specific industry. We understand that no one wants to write 30 unique cover letters, so you may consider looking for areas in the letter that could be left the same, like describing your background, and others that are more open to revision, such as why you want to work for the company.

You can see in this template example that employers and hiring managers are able to spot those telltale signs of a copy-and-pasted cover letter. Instead, they suggest using the time it takes to write a new cover letter as a chance to revisit the job posting. Consider if anything has changed since drafting your resume, either professionally or personally.

1. Focus on the cultural fit. Statistics in hiring have shown a rise in the importance of ensuring an employee or potential hire is contributing to the greater good of the workforce. You don’t need to dedicate entire parts of your letter to defining their culture and comparing yourself to those spaces. Instead, you can find subtle places to slip it in throughout the text.

For instance, this template shows how light touches in the introduction or experience sections can include some of the keywords the company uses to define their own culture. If you’re unsure of what it’s like to work there, check out their social channels, or try reaching out to someone with experience there.

The Don’ts of Cover Letters in 2020

1. Try not to tell the same story twice. Cover letters play an interesting role in the application process. While your resume works as a formal introduction to your education, work history, and professional skills, the cover letter is a chance to inject personality and color into your application. That’s why recruiters say they find it disappointing when applicants end up restating their resume.

“The employer already has your resume,” said Amanda Augastine, a career advice expert for TopResume. “Focus on making your career narrative and relevant qualifications crystal clear.”

Again, return to the job listing and the company website. How do you picture yourself fitting in, and what about your experiences might match the narrative of the employer? Anything to give it that personal touch will play a big role here.

2. Soft skills are great, just not when they’re boring. While hard skills like JavaScript proficiency or bookkeeping illustrate whether you can do the job, the soft skills are what help the hiring manager understand how you would handle those responsibilities. They’re not something you can learn in a webinar or from a blogger’s feed. You learned them yourself! Soft skills may not be as immediately attention-grabbing, but these are rooted in who you are and what your life experience has been.

Cover letters also have limited space, and filling up the letter with basic statements like being “dependable, honest, and a team player,” will not provide much personality, as one hopes any applicant would share those basic qualities. Do any of your soft skills have a story behind them? Building narrative throughout the cover letter adds a sense of completeness and authority.

Perhaps you’re dependable because your father taught you while you were double checking paperwork at his car dealership on a humid summer evening. Maybe your team player attitude was developed while interning at a lab last summer? Anything that elevates those soft skills above buzz words is ideal. Here are some perfect examples for you to consider in this soft skills cover letter template.

3. Don’t forget to close out strong.

The ending of your cover letter isn’t a boilerplate farewell; this is your last chance to go after the interview. Sure, it’s unlikely to come down to the final few words, especially if you’ve already dazzled them in the early sections and resume. But just like you would when leaving a physical interview, there’s a need to write as if you’re looking the recruiter directly in the eye and topping it off with a firm handshake and confident exit.

It doesn’t need to be a big, emotional statement; all you need is to reiterate your interest and then talk next steps. Rather than telling the company you’ll await their call, describe exactly when you’ll be available next week. Say that you “look forward to speaking in person.” It may sound like a silly trick, but this kind of hard-headed gusto can be impressive. Check out these examples of amazing and confident closing lines to cover letters.

Cover letters are the perfect addition to a resume. While resumes are pointed, precise, and left brain-leaning, your cover letter allows a chance for the personality and creativity of your right brain to take center stage. While this list is a good start, there is no shortage of excellent cover letter templates and examples that can help get you out your head and write something completely new about yourself. Happy job hunting!

Crafting a resume and cover letter can tricky. To narrow down a list of candidates, many companies use applicant tracking systems (ATS) to sort and process resumes. ATS software often utilizes automated keyword scanner bots as a first pass on all applications, meaning that getting the attention of hiring managers requires knowing what those specific keywords are and how to use them. In fact, 70 percent of applications are disqualified by ATS software without being reviewed by an actual human recruiter.

While keyword scanning is not a new development, there are yearly trends in these keywords and practices that you should understand. So, with a new year upon us, let’s look at the resume and cover letter keyword trends for 2021.

How To Determine 2021 Resume and Cover Letter Keywords

Every company uses ATS software a little differently. While there are many resources that provide master lists of keywords, these provide little help without context surrounding the job to which you are applying. That’s why experts are urging job seekers in 2021 to read the job description carefully and deduce what types of keywords a company might want.

This process is fairly straightforward. In fact, many job listings will actually include the keywords they’ll be looking for in certain areas of the posting. According to Indeed, these keywords are most commonly listed within the following sections:

• Education requirements,
• Duties and responsibilities
• Preferred qualifications

The keyword choices in your resume should echo the ones you see in the description. Because the ATS software isn’t human, your goal should be for identical phrasings. For example, if you see a job listing that lists “Bookkeeping software” as a requirement and you indicate you have experience in “Payroll software” or something more specific like “QuickBooks,” the software may not read that as a keyword match.

The same applies for industry keywords, which many experts are also including for their 2021 resume and cover letter trends. As we can see from this list of the most popular current resume keywords, recruiters are programming their ATS software to look for both broad and specific requirements. If we think about the keywords used in a sales position, for example, there are ultra-specific terms like:

• Channel Management
• Lead Management
• Post-Sales Support
• RFP / RFI / Bid Preparation
• Strategic Alliance Development

Look for these types of industry-related keywords in the job description. If you see anything that relates directly to this market, type of work, or company, it’s a good idea to optimize your resume or cover letter to reflect them.

Best Practices for Using Resume and Cover Letter Keywords

Once you’ve identified the best keywords for a specific job posting, it’s time to optimize your resume and cover letter. Because the ATS software is automated, there are a couple important rules of thumb to follow throughout your documents.

• Aim for identical spelling and grammar as you see in the job posting. Typos and grammatical errors are still the #1 mistake seen on resumes in 2020. This includes abbreviations and numbers; if a job listing abbreviates Customer Relationship Management software to “CRM,” make sure you’re using that shorthand; if the listing spells out “three years experience” make sure to spell out the number.
• Keywords should be evenly distributed throughout the document, not all dumped into a single section. In fact, according to Monster.com, keywords that only get used once may be flagged by the software. If you have a keyword used in your skill section, back that up by repeating it under your education or previous experience sections.
• Use these keywords naturally. Stuffing keywords into a resume might “hack” the ATS software, but once it’s reviewed by a recruiter, it could read as unnatural or even untruthful. Think about which keywords best reflect your actual skillset and then build sections around those.
• Always include a keyword-optimized cover letter. Though the job listing might not ask for one, this is a chance to speak about yourself in a much more colloquial fashion.

Lastly, do not lie in resumes and cover letters just for the sake of keywords. This practice might be enough to get past the software, but seasoned recruiters and human resources professionals will quickly see through those falsehoods. Not only could this disqualify you from a specific job posting, it could also damage your industry reputation, especially if you’re applying to similar positions in the same city or business community.

Regardless of the position or industry, remember that persistence is key. These keyword trends shouldn’t keep you from remembering what makes you unique. Whether you’re looking for a change in career path or just starting out after college, the process of optimizing your resumes will feel as natural as interviewing after some practice. Happy 2021 job hunting, everyone!