the wrong perspective may be costing you interviews

“I can do that job!”
I hear it all the time — phrases like “I can do that job” or “I’m qualified for this job.” While I think it’s important to have high confidence and a strong sense of your target while job searching, I encourage you to put yourself into a recruiter’s shoes to better understand why these types of questions are shortsighted.
Imagine you are a busy recruiter at a top company. You receive hundreds, maybe even thousands of resumes daily. There are quite literally not enough hours in the day to review all of them, so what do you do?
The answer is automation.

That’s right! In case you haven’t heard, most savvy companies are using technology to sift through resumes. Technology allows recruiters to spend time with the candidates who come closest to meeting the job requirements. Automation can be utilized at almost every step of the recruitment process: scanning resumes for keywords and ranking suitability according to an applicant’s responses.
Why does this matter?
Well, let’s say you are applying for a senior management position and one of the listed requirements is “experience with Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platforms.” Recruiters can set up their applicant tracking system to prioritize candidates whose resume includes the company’s current CRM (e.g. Salesforce) and those most similar (e.g. Hubspot). So even if you list out “experience with twelve CRM systems” unless you specify Salesforce or Hubspot, your resume won’t rise to the top of the applicant pool.
Most applicants will see the position, consider their experience and conclude that they do in fact have CRM experience and should proceed to apply. They will send in their standard resume without ever reviewing it to confirm all of the CRMs they’ve used throughout their career are actually listed on their resume. This is where a shift in perspective can make the difference between your resume falling to the top of the applicant pool, or the bottom. Instead of asking yourself if you can do the job, ask yourself if it will be clear to the person (or automation) reviewing your resume that you clearly meet the requirements.
Quality over Quantity
This approach takes time and focus, but in the end tailoring your resume to specific job requirements will help ensure your resume isn’t disregarded by recruitment automation or de-prioritized for not containing specific buzzwords.
Conclusion
Whether you are actively searching for your next job, or just keeping an eye out for the right opportunity, taking the time to critically review your resume against each of the job requirement will improve the chances of your resume getting noticed.
Do you need resume help or career advice? As a recruiter and career advisor for over ten years, I’m deeply familiar with what hiring teams are looking for every step of the way. I’m on a mission to share my knowledge and experience to improve the career journeys of as many people as possible. Contact me today to get started!
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