Employability & Resumé Hacks
When applying for a position you need to know how your application is being handled.
Resumé Hacks
Below are several useful tips to help get you noticed by potential employers when applying for a job...
Beat the Computer
When applying for jobs there’s one thing you need to know and it relates to how your job applications are handled.
When you submit a resumé for a job role there are 2 ways they are handled:
- Personally
- Via Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS)
Sending your resumé directly to someone via their email, for example, is a personal job application. It means you can design your resumé however you want. It can have professional icons, custom layouts, graphs, columns, fancy colours, and different fonts. In short, your resumé is allowed to look as AWESOME as you want it to. Heck, you can even send through an online resumé through a link.
However, ATS’s are a primitive form of technology used by companies to filter out job applicants for roles. It’s become a bedrock of employment and most recruiters and employers are reliant on them. 494 Fortune 500 companies use an ATS! The purpose of an ATS is to scan through 1000’s of resumés, extract and copy your information into a database, and then search for keywords. This creates big problems for YOU.
The ATS is likely the reason you have not heard back from the 99 jobs you applied for in the last 6 months. Did you know 75% of applications are rejected before a human even sees them? Including you! Here is what happens when you apply to a company that uses an ATS. Think of the ATS as a rusty robot from the 1980s that combs over your old-school word document as soon as you submit it to a company to formalise your job application.
An Applicant Tracking System, or ATS is an amazing piece of automation technology designed to help a single person manage thousands of applicants, 10’s of thousands of pages of writing, and millions of keywords, EVERY WEEK. Unfortunately, these systems also have limitations. What goes into the ATS on one side, impacts what comes out the other side. If a recruiter asks for applicants to hold XYZ qualification, or have specific experience with a certain type of software, then the ATS will prioritise applicants with those exact words in their CV. This is why it is so important to read the ad you are applying for, to identify the key skills and experience being asked for, and where you have them, make sure they are written into your CV using the exact words, spelling, and acronyms used in the job ad. This makes it possible to beat the Autobot and ensure you are ranked against the other applicants appropriately.
There are 3 important things you need to know about creating a resumé that works for an ATS and you should take these into account because many of the best candidates for the role don’t even make it to a pair of human eyes:
- The resumé needs to be sent in as a standard MS Word Doc. If this doesn’t happen the ATS can’t read it properly and it rejects you.
- Certain types of formatting, layouts, text boxes, tables, and document formats (PDF's) can’t be read by an ATS which means it automatically rejects you or scores your resumé lower than others.
- You need to copy in the keywords from the job advertisements you are applying for and repeat them a few times. To do this it helps to assess yourself against the key skills in the job advertisement and if you can identify yourself as having those skills, to ensure those keywords are reflected in your resumé. The frequency of keywords in a resumé that matches the job description is one of the criteria an ATS uses as it scans your resumé (and luckily companies always tell you what they are looking for in job descriptions they advertise).
It saddens us that the best people lose out on job opportunities because of this ATS process which is why we have provided version management functionality for your resumés and created a system that converts your beautifully designed resumés into MS Word documents compatible with ATS’s.
Tailored versions and compatible document types are the recipe for your job hunt success if you need to apply through online systems.
Our resumé builder allows you to:
- Convert any of your resumés into ATS compatible formats
- Manage different versions of your resumé, because tailored applications are important
- Access your resumés from anywhere because they are stored online!
- Professionally customise the look and feel of your resumé
- Input videos and other forms of media (important for graphic designers, actors, and other media-heavy occupations)
"Many of the best candidates for the role don’t even make it to a pair of human eyes".
Impress the Recruiter
There is another fundamental ingredient of a successful resumé... and this is the layout of information.
As part of your job hunting journey there comes a point in time where you inevitably end up on Google searching for “resumé templates”. If you can relate you’d realise there are thousands to choose from, if not millions! Some traditional, others futuristic. Some short, others long. Some simple, others stylish. This one is black and white, the other looks like a peacock. The choices are endless and if you’ve never experienced ANALYSIS PARALYSIS you probably just did. Talk about information overload.
The reason you can’t choose is because deep down you’re racking your brain wondering which template is going to work the best and secure you an interview. From section 1 we already know the digital format of the resumé and certain elements of it regularly short circuit the good old autobot ATS which eliminates some candidates. However there are still thousands left. The LAYOUT and how INFORMATION is displayed comes next.
Here’s what happens after you upload your resumé and click submit...
So, say a recruiter received 500 applicants for a role they recently posted. Their ATS then goes through these resumés discarding people’s whos were in the wrong format, lacked keywords, or had icons, columns, or colours it didn’t like. The top 10% are left. Congratulations, you made the cut.
The recruiter then takes the first 30-50 resumés, reading through them very quickly. In their mind there are 4 key categories of information they are looking for and if they can’t easily locate the information they scrunch you up and jump shot you into the office bin.
The 4 key categories of information are UNIVERSAL to all industries and roles whether the job is sourcing a labourer, a graduate intern, or a CEO of a multinational.
- Tertiary Qualifications: Do you have tertiary qualifications relevant for the role distinguishing you from others?
- Professional Development: They look for professional development you’ve done relevant to the position they are hiring for.
- Technical Snapshot: Do you understand the software and systems required for the role you’re applying for?
- Summary of Working History: This needs to be concisely summarised and delivered in a way relevant for the recruiter.
Combining the first section on digital formatting with this section on layout is 80% of the battle! Our resumé building system utilises resumé templates selected by the RECRUITMENT INDUSTRY. These resumé templates are that powerful and potent that they are guaranteed to land you deep inside company lines.
We’ve done the groundwork for you, the only thing left is for you to sell yourself like crazy.
"We’ve done the groundwork for you, the only thing left is for you to sell yourself like crazy".
Sell yourself to the hiring manager
This is the last piece of the puzzle for a super effective resumé that’s guaranteed to tick all the boxes in recruiter’s and hiring manager's minds.
Remember, the brunt of the battle when trying to get noticed amidst a sea of job applicants is the format and layout of your resumé. These 2 components usually lead silly machines to reject you before someone has a chance to consider you. However, this last component is one surefire way to send your resumé from the top 10% to the top 1%.
With 1000’s of applicants for each role in a turbulent job climate it’s going to be ultra competitive and it’s no surprise you’re not hearing back from many applications. To breakthrough you have to be the BEST suited candidate out of everyone else. It’s a given many people will be more qualified than you, more experienced, will work for less money, and many can probably do the job better than you can.
This isn’t having a dig at you, this is statistics. Only 1 person can be the best suited for a job out of 1000 but here’s the thing: It’s not how good you are, how qualified, or how experienced… It’s how you sell yourself through your resumé!
This one document is your ticket into your next job and there are certain things employers and recruiters go crazy for. If you know how their minds work you can hack them through your resumé.
Luckily for you we know how their minds work, one of our co-founders was one of them for over 10 years! After some poking and prodding we finally got him to divulge his recruitment secrets and the hallmarks of an effective resumé. When he did we stole his knowledge, documented his insights, and created an interactive resumé coach to help you land yourself in the top 1% of job applicants, consistently!
Expect callbacks, emails, and interviews, it really works.. If it didn’t we wouldn’t be here providing it to awesome people like you!
Instead of paying $350 PER resumé for a professional resumé coach you can access their coveted resumé writing SECRETS for under a third of the cost through ZYGAVERSE's INTERACTIVE RESUMÉ COACH. It’ll take your resumé into the stratosphere. Don’t forget, tailored resumés are vital for beating the computer and impressing the recruiter!
"With 1000’s of applicants for each role in a turbulent job climate it’s going to be ultra-competitive and it’s no surprise you’re not hearing back from many applications".