Resume Match Game

Too often we hear of jobseekers getting stuck in the cycle of applying for jobs and never getting an interview opportunity. This can be an extremely frustrating place to be in for anyone. Applying for jobs and not hearing anything back can affect self-esteem and zap motivation. While there could be many reasons for the lack of employer response, we have found that a good percentage of instances involve inadequate jobseeker resumes. The good news……There are several things you can do to put yourself back in the driver’s seat with your resume and we hope this article helps you do just that.

First, it is important to understand how most companies are analyzing your resume once you click apply for one of their jobs. Usually, your resume will be scanned and looked at by a computer or artificial intelligence to see if you meet the requirements or fit the company’s needs. The company is scanning for specific words or key phrases in your resume. This brings us to our big tip of the day:

You need to modify your resume for each and every job that you apply for. Don’t use the same one for every company. Don’t even use the same one for companies in the same industry. This is one of the main reasons why people get filtered out of the application process and they don’t even realize it.

To give yourself the best chance of passing the resume test, you need to include exact words and phrases from that company’s job description into your resume. So how do I do that you might ask? Well, if the job description mentions, for example, “5 years of Salesforce experience required”, you can put “Over 5 years of Salesforce experience” into your resume. Think of it as a match game. The company computers are looking for specific words and phrases in resumes and if they find a match they allow the resume to move on. If you think of it that way, resumes become a bit easier. An important caveat though. Only put items from that job description that you have done or that match your experience. Don’t lie or stretch the truth. If you play the resume match game for each job you apply for, you stand a much better chance of getting to the “speaking to a human” phase, which is where we all want to be.

If you still aren’t too confident about the resume/job description matching, we encourage you to check out www.jobscan.co. We aren’t affiliated with them in any way but this matching game is what they do. They look at the job description and your resume and let you know what they have in common so you can make those adjustments. They have a certain number of freebies you can use to test it out to get the feel of it.

Don’t let an old resume get you kicked out of the process for a job you want!