Navigate The "Black Hole" of Applying For Jobs
Applying for jobs has been infamous for being a "black hole" for many years, but its worse now than ever. These tips just might help.
You’re about to read an awful and brutal truth on the infamous “black hole” of ad response.
Always remember, People hire people, not resumes. Your resume is an interview tool, it will not get you the job. Your goal is to get a foot in the door and an opportunity to interview for the job. This might help.
“I ran an ad for an onsite Tech/Ops Director in NYC, and in 48 hours I received 740 ad responses.” This is a true statement from one of my trusted clients, followed by “This is so overwhelming, I don’t even know where to start.”
The number of applicants per job is so high that even LinkedIn once posted the actual number of applicants for the job has changed it to a blanket statement “Over 100 applicants”.
Your resume is 1 of 300 right now. This sucks but it's true. I’m sure most of you have experienced this. You’ve probably wondered why you check literally ALL the boxes on a job description and yet you don’t even get an acknowledgement that you sent a resume.
What’s pathetic is that there are companies that will charge you money to have “A team of intelligent bots apply you to tons of relevant tech jobs to supercharge your job search” Yup, you read that correctly. Sounds great if you don’t care where your resume goes or what job, but if you wonder why companies aren’t getting back to you, start to consider this.
On the hiring side, now you are blasted with resumes from a robot representing people who never read your job ad in the first place. I ask this: why bother to even post an ad anymore? I’ll digress on this topic for now.
The truth: as a recruiter, when you have to go through over 500 resumes to find the 5% you want to talk to your eyes start bleeding. Fatigue sets in. You start screening for random words, or worse yet have another robot. Control F, or an automated system look for buzzwords and acronyms, see how many times it’s found, and screen you based on those criteria. Most people and robots find reasons that will get you screened out, not screened in.
Mind you I said this is the truth and it's awful. Don’t blame me for calling out the elephant in the room.
I am here to help! Here are some things that can help get you screened in, or also some things that will get you screened out. This doesn’t guarantee anything, but it can definitely help.
Remember what I said earlier, People hire people, not resumes. Your resume is an interview tool, it will not get you the job. Your goal is to get a foot in the door and an opportunity to interview for the job. That’s what we are going for here.
Things recruiters actually look for and “breeze through” on your resume:
Is your resume simple and easy to read? Short and sweet. No one reads what you did 10 years ago. Learn to summarize everything you did back then.
Speak in bullet points, not paragraphs. If it's long and cumbersome, it will get passed by.
Titles matter - make them simple.
Dates matter - put the months, not just years. From 2022-2023 doesn’t do much for me. From 3/22-11/23 means something.
BRAG! Get the interview! I want to see why I should talk to you and what I need to talk to you about.
Point out what you actually did - “Built, saved, led, hired, digitized, transformed”.
Location - tell us where you live. Even if the job is remote, time zones matter. I would be psyched if someone lived close to the office or me. I would love the opportunity to get together with someone even if the job is remote.
Schools you never completed - show things you did do, not what you thought about doing but never got around to
Put your Reason For Leaving on the resume - we need to know anyway so don’t be shy about it. Just tell us.
Under the company name - what does the company do? Industry? Yes, we all JP Morgan is a Global Finance Company, but if you’re in High Net Worth Management or Front Office Fixed Income, help tell me what I need to know. This is more apt to get me to call you.
Lose the one page of bulleted summaries. If you have 2-3 “Magic Moments” you want to brag about, then hit me with it, but I don’t need the past 25 years summed up in 18 bullet points.
We need to see your experience - get your recent job at the top. The more we have to scroll the more fatigue you’re asking for.
The Market is different right now than anything most of you have seen in your career. In 25 years, I’ve recruited through the DOT COM bubble burst, the financial collapse, and now this great tech layoff bull sh*t session since January 2023. This time around is different.
I’ve read hundreds of thousands of resumes, and have interviewed more candidates than I can ever admit out loud. I LOVE talking to candidates and diving into their backgrounds, but you need to make it easy for me to see them and give me something to talk about.
I hope this helps. Averity is always here to help and provide an unparalleled experience to everyone we interact with. We aren’t miracle workers, but we’re pretty damn close.
Hope to TALK to you soon!