In a previous article, we discussed how an employer might interview candidates to assess them on their cultural competency. Here, a recruiter looks at a job candidate’s background and tries to determine how his or her skills, experience and specialized knowledge of a market or culture can help the company move ahead and impact the bottom line. Today, many corporations are awakening to the advantages such cultural assets can bring to their organizations. 
            Cultural competency can be defined by the needs of the company and how those requirements are directly applicable to a job opening they may have. For example, a company may have a need for a Spanish-speaking candidate with knowledge of the Cuban culture to call upon prospective clients in Miami . Here, not just anyone with the language and sales skills will do as the cultural competency of the candidate may just rule the day. Placing a Spanish-speaking Mexican or Central American salesperson into the role would likely result in little business at all due to the nuances in Hispanic culture.  
            So, how do candidates themselves leverage their cultural assets to land that big job? After all, the perspective employee only gets one shot at the job—and that’s from a resume at best.
            Let’s start with the most obvious. Does your resume accurately reflect ALL of your skills and cultural assets? Are you multi-lingual? If so, it is important to include this, and it wouldn’t hurt to have a resume in that language either. Have you ever traveled overseas or have knowledge of how a specific country deals with your industry or that of the target industry? Do your research and find out! Be certain to include your understanding of that market in your resume and think through ways that you can attach your knowledge to another answer in an interview. 
            For example: “Ms. Smith, have you ever marketed machine products to customers in the Bahamas ?” Answer: “Well no, I have not marketed machine products specifically, but my parents have a vacation home in the Bahamas and I have spent every summer there since I was a small child. I know the people and the culture as if it were my own.” 
            Resumes should be regarded as a chance to share just enough information about you to pique the interest of the interviewer, not tell your life story. But very frequently these days, human eyes do not even see your resume unless they have a specific interest in your background. It is critical then to leverage your cultural competencies as well as your skills and experience such that the scanning software picks it up and records it. 
            Of course, you’ll want to seed your resume with keywords that help describe your cultural assets, but you can also include a keywords section at the bottom of your resume. The applicant tracking software will not differentiate between the textual content of the resume but will only see the keyword. So seed your resume with appropriate descriptors of your assets and then duplicate them in the keywords section. 
            If you’re running out of space, simply remove the “References Available on Request” section and replace it with keywords. The references section is one of the most useless on a resume. NEVER put references in this section. Recruiters will use them as secondary resources to fill their jobs and wear out your welcome with those that agreed to speak kindly about you. 
            Once you have the interview, let the recruiter or hiring manager address that which is important to him or her. When preparing your resume for that particular job opportunity (you do that right?), you will have already touched on your cultural assets. Let them do the work. You just serve up the information. It goes without saying that if you do not have the appropriate experience or cultural competency, do not put it on your resume or try and bluff your way through the interview. I took a concentrated Spanish course in college and did very well in it. The job I was interviewing for required Spanish. I thought I could just brush up and skate through the interview…it didn’t go well. If you’ve got it, flaunt it. If you don’t, look for another opportunity.
            Listing business, fraternal and alumni associations on your resume is helpful, but keep in mind that few recruiters know that Kappa Alpha Psi is an African American Culture fraternity. Make sure you spell it out for them. Do so in a subtle yet engaging manner and you’ll get more interviews and find that dream job that allows you to leverage your cultural competency.   
            Carl Braun is a Principal in The Inclusiv* Group, an executive search firm, and a thought leader for more than 10 years in diversity recruiting in the US . He is a published author, nationally recognized motivational speaker and radio personality. Carl was the former President of DiversityInc.com Careers and launched some of the earliest and most successful diversity job boards on the web. He lives in San Diego . He and his wife, Susan, have five grown children, two of whom serve their country proudly in Afghanistan and Iraq .