Anyone who has been applying for a job opening in the past 15 years knows that the first hurdle to getting noticed is making it through an Applicant Tracking System (ATS). These systems allow companies to sift through an average of 250 resumes submitted for every job posting they are trying to fill [1]. And some popular companies, like Google, may receive an average of 2,000 applicants for a job opening, and reportedly receives over 50,000 resumes per week[2]!
The ATS was first developed to help companies cope with this resume “blizzard”. Today, over 90 percent of Fortune 500 companies use an ATS to automate their resume screening process[3]. But there is more to come.
Like most technology platforms, the ATS is also evolving rapidly: from a simple “key word search engine” to the talent acquisition arm of what HR Guru Josh Bersin calls “Talent Intelligence”, an integrated approach to HR across all domains of the organization to increase business performance and, ultimately, improve competitive advantage[4].
Artificial Intelligence (AI) and other forms of machine learning are at the vanguard of this HR revolution. It is enabling recruiters to use semantic search and other tools to sort and score resumes with better alignment to job requirements and descriptions.
Bottom line, recruiters are using some sophisticated technology to increase their effectiveness of the average 6-7 seconds they spend screening each resume they receive to find the right candidate[5].
So, why shouldn’t you?
According to the recruiters we’ve talked to, an overwhelming majority want to see resumes that are tailored to an open position. This means adapting the content in your resume to “connect the dots” between your experience and what the recruiter is looking for. That is substantially more than loading your resume up with key words… it means translating your work experience in a way that aligns your skills with the job. The same goes for the cover letter.
All of this can take time. And considering that you’re likely to send 30-50 resumes to land a job, that could be a lot of time[6].
A smarter way to approach things is to view your resume as a portfolio of your experiences from which you can draw connections between your skills and talents and those required by the posting.
Using this approach helps you to get out of the rut of thinking of your resume as simply a chronology of jobs you’ve held. It allows you to start thinking about how the skills and talents you used in each role apply to the job opening you are looking at.
The trick is having a place to store all of this information in a way that is easy to access, and easy to adapt to each job opening.
That’s the idea behind MyData™ Portfolio, our cloud-based resume service that allows you to tailor your resume to each job opening easily, without having to start from scratch each time.
MyData Portfolio is our latest effort in using technology to help individuals reach their potential. The way we see it, it’s a natural extension of the other tools we have developed over the past 25 years that help people discover their unique talents, skills and preferences, then leverage this insight for satisfaction and success.
Give Human eSources resume a try. Not only is it free (and always will be), but it can also help you (and the recruiter) see your experience and talent in a whole new way.
[1] Retrieved from https://www.inc.com/peter-economy/19-interesting-hiring-statistics-you-should-know.html
[2] Retrieved from https://dazeinfo.com/2022/11/04/google-rejects-resume-job-seekers-mistakes
[3] Retrieved from https://www.cnbc.com/2023/06/07/resume-mistakes-ai-black-hole.html
[4] Understanding Talent Intelligence. A Primer, 2022 The Josh Bersin Company
https://joshbersin.com/understanding-talent-intelligence-a-primer/
[5] How long do hiring managers look at a resume? Indeed. 2022, July 8. Retrieved from https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/resumes-cover-letters/how-long-do-employers-look-at-resumes
[6] Resume statistics 2022 (Analysis of 133,000 documents). Tomaszewski, Michael. Zety. 2022, December 13. Retrieved from https://zety.com/blog/resume-statistics
