Top Pharmacy Resume Buzzwords

When putting together a resume these days, career counselors stress the importance of using keywords. These are words tailored to a particular job and profession used to highlight a person’s skills and experience.

Keywords have acquired even greater importance as technology has become integral to the hiring process, where applicant tracking systems now routinely scan resumes for these terms.

The dilemma for the job candidate is making sure he or she is using the right keywords, the ones most important to the employer. How can you be sure that you are using the best keywords? There are several ways to find them.

Use job description.

One of the best sources for determining keywords is the job description, taking your cue from the language used by the employer. Identify the keywords used in the description and incorporate them into your resume.

Look for descriptive terms that repeatedly appear, especially when they are used to describe skills, results or culture. Look at the job title and watch out for phrases that contain the words “need” or “should.”

In the job responsibilities section, look for the action verbs, the language that contains the words “must” or “regularly,” and the words used to describe skills or competencies.

Under qualifications, look for degrees, licenses, and certifications listed, years of experience, and words like “recommended” or “required.”

Sometimes word cloud sites are helpful to give some indication of how often particular words are used, which may help to identify keywords, although this is not always the case.

Look at the company website.

This is another place to look for keywords. Examine the organization’s mission statement, goals, and annual report to glean keywords that are important to the employer.

Incorporate pharmacy buzzwords.

In addition to the keywords that are specific to a certain job, there are keywords or buzzwords specific to each profession, and pharmacy certainly has its share. Here are some of the more common buzzwords for pharmacy that are now in circulation: patient-centered pharmaceutical care, pharmacotherapeutic, clinical pharmacy, pharmacoeconomics, central pharmacy, decentralized pharmacy, complementary and alternative medicine, patient education, noncompliance, continuing competence, patient outcomes, narrow therapeutic index, evidence-based, disease state management, patient-focused and cost-effective.

Use general resume buzzwords.

For professional healthcare jobs, there are some general keywords and buzzwords that can help when putting together a resume.

For example, when talking about your ability to work in a team, you can use words like facilitated, guided, managed, participated, and supervised. When emphasizing problem-solving skills, words such as implemented, improved, initiated, introduced, inspired and investigated are effective keywords.

If you are describing your leadership skills, good words to use are created, designed, developed, devised, directed, organized, and formulated.

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