I recently had a painful conversation with an applicant who was looking for a new position. On paper the resume was pretty good. I wouldn't say stellar, but certainly someone that should get some attention in today's tight job market. Good educational background, progressive experience, and decent tenure in previous positions (today that means more than 1 year).
Here was the problem. They had been applying for positions on Indeed and Linkedin. There was no "strategy" behind the applications, just applying to pretty much anything that populated in their feed with the hopes of getting a call or email response. This applicant got ZERO responses and couldn't understand why.
If you're an applicant and don't understand this concept, please read and re-read until it makes sense. If it doesn't. Call me!
Your background will likely only get flagged if you are a really close match to the position you applied to. Sure ATS systems will miss all the wonderful things in your background that made you think this job was a great fit for you, and humans will do the same. Unfortunately, internal recruiting teams are pretty swamped and they don't really have the luxury of dissecting your resume to find what they're looking for. If it doesn't jump off the page within about 30-45 seconds they'll be off to review the next applicant.
So the question becomes, how many of those postings on indeed were an 80% or more match for your background? Not many if you truly pay attention to the requirements. So, there you are hitting send, send, send...and getting no reply. You're gambling hoping something sticks and it's just not going to work.
Instead, just do a few simple things to help your cause.
1. Call a recruiter. Like them or not, they can get more attention for your resume a lot quicker than you can in most cases.
2. Contact the hiring manager directly without sending your resume and just briefly state how your experience can be a solution to their posting.
3. Network your way into the company and have someone submit your resume internally. This almost always gets at least a courtesy call or email.
These 3 simple steps will increase your chances of moving on to the next phase in the process tremendously.
No more gambling....
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