PSA to anyone job hunting right now: Two things you can do to break through the clutter and get noticed. 1. Focus on the keywords in the job description. I get hundreds (and hundreds) of resumes for every open position. The first thing I do is use AI to identify applicants that meet the job criteria, and that criteria is based on keywords. Take the time to tweak your resume so that it makes through my filter. 2. Tell me what you've accomplished, not what you've done. My second pass is scanning for numbers. I am looking for $ and % that tell me how you've helped the business - and the closer to the bottomline, the better. For example, instead of telling me that you were in charge of lead generation, tell me how many leads you drove. Even better, tell me how much revenue those leads produced. I don't have to tell you that job hunting is hard. By doing these two things, you will make it easier for me - and other hiring managers - to find you. And we really want to find you.
Theresa I’m having a really hard time trying to get interviews while I am layed off… Never had this like now…
Forcing candidates to tailor their resumes to ATS systems highlights a bigger issue in the hiring process. These systems often fail to recognize transferable skills, leaving qualified people overlooked and wasting countless hours on tailored resumes. It’s frustrating to see real people with families to support stuck in this cycle of auto rejections after doing exactly what’s asked of them. Even CEOs have pointed out how flawed these systems are. AI has its place, but we need to acknowledge where it falls short and rethink how it’s being used in hiring.
These are not things that "break through the clutter." We're told time and time again that this is what we're supposed to do and hundreds of thousands of us are doing exactly this, yet get nowhere. Your AI methods are broken and your standards are unrealistic. These are the people who give out advice and months later complain they put the wrong candidate in the wrong position only because they squeezed past your filter and probably overexaggerated their accomplishments on their resume.
It’s a very different environment today. I think the big thing people are missing is those of us like me who are exceptional leaders, can collaborate with a team, and build a workspace where people can thrive. We have left the soft skills somewhere on the back burner. If you don’t have the right people leading you will never make the money.
Can you provide an example of how someone might quantify their financial contribution? Maybe they don’t have full access to the finances, or tools to completely track how their impact effected growth. Is it not enough to know they succeeded in their role? Is it better to make a number up? Glad you’re using AI but I find that a failed tool as you have zero chance, even less than actually reading a resume (I understand how difficult that task is but someone should do it, not a bot) to understand a persons experience. Asking because I think people should know more about your second point. How do you best quantify your financial contribution to a company. In todays world much of that is guarded. After operating costs it’s very difficult to be in a role and know what exactly you contributed to the bottom line. Sounds great in fantasy land but is it realistic to the majority of job positions? Asking for everyone. My last CEO guarded sales numbers and refused to pay out bonuses, you think he would tell me what I added to the business? This was a $100 million++ business. Let’s just try and be realistic. Between bots and making up numbers, what should people focus on, and HOW?
Job hunting is already extremely difficult as is. Everyone wants us to tailor our resumes to meet their needs, but what about our needs? We are often overlooked because we tailored our resume to fit your AI tool, or algorithm, and to no avail, are still not finding roles. This is a much larger problem. The standards are highly unrealistic. Your methods just simply don't work and are only in place so that it makes you (the recruiter) job a little easier but does absolutely nothing for us. In fact, we waste more time having to do this, when finding a job is already so time consuming as is.
So it’s not just AI running the show, it’s also good old keyword searches and a sprinkle of human judgment—how refreshing. And of course, results are key, because nothing says ‘hire me’ like squeezing every number and metric you can out of a job. Who needs a personal touch when you can have a database with better outcomes? I’m sure the flood of unqualified applicants is just as much a problem as dealing with actual skilled candidates who might not perfectly match a box on a spreadsheet. 📂
Not every position has access to the metrics, so you could be filtering out great candidates for the wrong reasons. Out of the thousands of campaigns I’ve created, very few have had metrics shared or a post mortem.
So you are hiring candidates who pretend to fit the profile thanks to some A.I solution, then they are screened by another A.I system who reads key words that match the job description, while great candidates for the role get disqualified because they did not cheat 🤦🏻♀️
Great discussion happening here and I appreciate the comments and feedback. To clarify a couple things, I am not a recruiter. I am a CMO trying to get some great people on my team. While I would love to read every resume that comes in (truly, I would) when we get 500-1000 for every job posted, that's just not realistic. I don't rely only on AI. I do keyword searches as well for areas of critical focus and experience. And, while it is not all about metrics, by showing outcomes, whatever they may be, that shows me that the individual cares about results and sees the bigger picture, whether that picture is company revenue or number of responses to a program they contributed to - based on their level within the org. One of the biggest challenges is when people who are in no way qualified a role, I'm talking absolutely no relevant experience at all, apply and clog up the system making it harder to find the truly qualified candidates.