The biggest roadblock for most job applicants for executive or management positions is in the resume review. Electronic, automated resume review, as in Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS).
If you are contemplating hiring a professional resume writer, ask them how you must adjust their work for each job for which you apply. Suppose they do not know or tell you that constant revisions will not be necessary? Full stop! Find another vendor.
Here are a few fun facts about the spread of ATS systems.
- It’s Spreading. Once found only in the largest corporations – as late as four or five years ago – their use is now spreading into medium-sized organizations at a high rate of speed as the acquisition/licensing costs have lowered and more companies rely on internal recruiters to find the necessary talent. These organizations, attempting to manage their talent acquisition costs, rely on ATS to organize the flow of the hundreds or the many thousands of resumes they receive online each week and to cull the un-qualified or underqualified applicants.
- This sucks. Research shows that for every 100 applicants received for a given position, about 75 percent are rejected because the resume’s information did not match the position needs, which is to say the algorithm did not detect the keywords or job duty phrases specific to a given job. Or these phrases and keywords were dumped in the Professional Summary and not incorporated throughout the document. This reflects how the average ATS has become scarily sophisticated.
- Generic is so yesterday. Most of the rejected resumes are generic. There was little or no customization for the specific job, talent acquisition executives believe. This means there was little or no chance that a human would ever see the resume.
- Dead bang bad advice. The artificial intelligence component of the scanning is only going to become more sophisticated. Those who believe they can beat the system with a few tweaks to a resume have learned or will learn that this advice is outdated and dead bang wrong.
- The speed of change is accelerating. The speed of change in the talent acquisition field is accelerating. What amounts to good, solid advice today may be totally out of date in six months. Sometimes less. A good coach will help you adapt.
- We are here to help. For a free telephone consult, contact us at YourCareerSuccess@JohnGSelf.Com.