A shout-out to all job-seekers

I wish I'd known this before now. Please share it with people you know.

This is a true story, with names changed to protect the innocent. It is the tale of a 30 year old man who was unexpectedly laid off when his employer went through an acquisition and a subsequent change of leadership. Let’s call him Jack.

Jack had worked for the same small company for seven years since graduating in economics - a major that doesn’t always have an obvious career path. He ended up in the marketing department where he slowly became expert in SEO, email marketing, outbound sales, pipeline management, content and marketing automation.

When he found himself back on the job market in 2023, Jack tried to quell the natural panic that comes with being out of work, and he calmly (not) examined his options. He was relieved to see that Indeed ™, ZipRecruiter ™ and LinkedIn were displaying a wide range of openings. While he had enjoyed being the best in his small team at a range of marketing skills, he was also open to taking a job in sales, in Content Management or in most jobs with ‘digital’ in the job title.

Jack knew that if he only created one resume, it would cover more jobs, but with less relevance. Instead he created two different versions of his resume, one with a marketing leaning and the other highlighting his sales experience. He built in a number of bullet points and decided that for each job application, he would add bullet points if he could find relevant experience in his work history.

Jack was pretty desperate. He had managed to buy a house just a month before being laid off and now the mortgage was a constant pressure. Jack knew, to the day, how long his savings would last, and he understood very well that he had to find a job quickly.

He made a vow that he would apply for at least 5 jobs a day, 7 days a week. At some point, he increased that to 10 applications a day. Why? Because week after week, after week, 35+ applications resulted in total, dead silence. Not a nibble.

Jack re-wrote his resume and also came up with the best possible cover letter. Once again, he went out to his network and begged for feedback. He refined and edited, trying to achieve something that would work.

After five months, on what was only his second nibble, he finally got into interview rounds and found a job.

What Jack failed to understand while job-hunting

I am part of Jack’s network and during the five months of his struggle, I was spending time every day looking for opportunities for him. At some point, I read an article on the value of certifications, and with my encouragement, Jack put himself through several assessments to gain seals of approval. I can’t believe that in all my research, I completely missed the fact that the whole hiring process has become automated. Jack and I had talked about how the hiring manager would read his resume and cover letter and here’s what we didn’t know - research shows that 75% of resumes are rejected by the automated filters. They never get seen by a human being.

My embarrassed truth is that even though I was personally immersed in Jack’s hiring process, I never heard the term ATS - Application Tracking System.

99% of Fortune 500 companies used an ATS system in 2023. Additionally, 70% of all large companies and over 25% of small companies used an ATS system.

How does an ATS system work?

First thing to note is that although ATS systems can be configured to read more than one incoming document, LinkedIn says that it is rare for a company to include cover letters. If Jack, or any candidate, makes it through the filters and gets that hiring manager’s attention THEN a cover letter is suddenly really important, but it is very unlikely to even get read in more than 75% of applications.

Secondly, and the really important thing, is that ATS systems aren’t rocket science. The way they work is that the employer plugs the job description and keywords into the ATS system. Later, the candidate plugs their resume into the application, and a keyword match ensues.

For my own research, I found an online tool that simulates the ATS process. It is designed to help job-seekers scan their resume against a job specification, and grades the likelihood of the candidate being selected FOR THAT JOB. With Jack’s permission, I had his resume scanned against the job description for a job I knew he had really wanted (but never heard back).

He was rated “36” and the system said he would likely need at least 80 to get through the filter and get in front of a human being. The detailed report told me how he was marked down - things like:

• Jack’s degree subject (economics) was not a word found in the job spec

• Jack did not match for “email marketer” (he had written “email marketing” several times, but that wasn’t a match)

• He did not include any of these words: ROI; Database; WordPress (although he did write ‘blog platform’); budgets; copywriting; brand identity; digital channels (although he had used ‘channels’) …

All of the words that were called out as missing were in the job description.

I re-worked his resume, with a very cunning mindset. For example, I changed

“Bachelor’s Degree: Applied Economics” to

“Bachelor’s Degree: Digital Marketing was not an available major, but I have high-authority certificates in Digital Marketing and Email Marketing. Also, I graduated in Applied Economics”.

I buried almost every noun from the job description into Jack’s resume. It didn’t read very well, and was horribly long, but the new score was 91.

What should job-seekers learn?

This is all about algorithms. Being literate and succinct with your resume will not bring success. Sadly, keyword stuffing is the name of the game. Once you understand that a machine, and not a human, is going to line up your resume next to the job description (and some keywords that might not be visible to you) then for most people, the resume needs a very heavyweight edit. To get through the filters, you really need a different resume for every application.

If you, or someone you know needs help understanding how to adapt to a future where almost all jobs are run through an ATS, we have resources and tools to help out.