So I’ve gotten pretty good at applying for jobs having moved quite a bit and needing to change a few times in the past decade. Here’s my unsolicited advice for people getting sick of the application process (it sucks I know):
Make sure your resume can be easily OCR’d. OCR, or optical character recognition, is how programs and machines convert image-formatted text into plain text. Sometimes it works pretty well, and sometimes it spits out a garbled mess of text. If you’ve ever done an application that auto-fills fields after you upload your resume, you probably have a good idea how readable your resume is by a computer. Like it or not, the first step for a lot of companies is to filter by OCR converted text fields, and if yours isn’t legible, you may be out of luck. Use a simple, consistent font and don’t do any special formatting. If you want a second “fancier” printed version of your resume for interviews, go for it.
Fit your resume to a single page and highlight your skills at the top. You can change these from application to application if you want, and if you do, I suggest using verbiage from the job description because these are the keywords they’ll be looking for.
You’ll probably see a few jobs that really seem like a great fit for companies you really want to work for. CALL THESE COMPANIES. Trust me, employers don’t love the hiring process either, and if they’re actively trying to fill a role and they get a call from someone interested, they’ll probably respond. They may just politely tell you to follow the standard process, but that’s really the worst case scenario. And even if they do, they’ll probably keep an eye out for your application.
So I’ve gotten pretty good at applying for jobs having moved quite a bit and needing to change a few times in the past decade. Here’s my unsolicited advice for people getting sick of the application process (it sucks I know):
Make sure your resume can be easily OCR’d. OCR, or optical character recognition, is how programs and machines convert image-formatted text into plain text. Sometimes it works pretty well, and sometimes it spits out a garbled mess of text. If you’ve ever done an application that auto-fills fields after you upload your resume, you probably have a good idea how readable your resume is by a computer. Like it or not, the first step for a lot of companies is to filter by OCR converted text fields, and if yours isn’t legible, you may be out of luck. Use a simple, consistent font and don’t do any special formatting. If you want a second “fancier” printed version of your resume for interviews, go for it.
Fit your resume to a single page and highlight your skills at the top. You can change these from application to application if you want, and if you do, I suggest using verbiage from the job description because these are the keywords they’ll be looking for.
You’ll probably see a few jobs that really seem like a great fit for companies you really want to work for. CALL THESE COMPANIES. Trust me, employers don’t love the hiring process either, and if they’re actively trying to fill a role and they get a call from someone interested, they’ll probably respond. They may just politely tell you to follow the standard process, but that’s really the worst case scenario. And even if they do, they’ll probably keep an eye out for your application.
It’s a job just to get a job. Damn.
Always has been.
Meh, I’d say it’s gotten significantly worse in the past 10 years
Yeah it’s a lot of work and it sucks no matter what. Hopefully the tips I posted can make it a little quicker and easier for some!