Problem Statement: You have been applying online through job boards, company portals, staffing agencies and never get a call back for an interview.

Fact: Job boards and most, if not all, of the online resume submission tools automatically rank a resume based on key words found in that resume. The software scans your resume and ranks it based on a set of "key words" for that job. This is why many of these tools require you to upload a plain text or .doc version of your resume instead of a PDF. Software has an easier time "reading" plain text.

Based on how highly your resume ranks, it may be presented to an HR associate or hiring manager. These individual will scan your résumé for less than a minute before sorting résumés again. Your résumé MAY be read a second time depending on the hiring manager's impressions. If the software does not put you at the top of the stack, you most likely never make it to an in-person interview.

Work the System: Look up the job descriptions for the types of roles you are applying. Find key words common in many of those descriptions. These can be business terms, technical skills, or even the word "leadership." Make a list of all of these words.

Open up the Footer section of your resume. Copy your list of words and paste them into the footer. Now, highlight all of these words and change the text color to white and make the font size really small. The key here is that no one will ever see these words, but that the software will find them in your resume and put it at the top of the stack.

This will help get your resume in front of a set of human eyes.

There are a number of other great articles here to help with the next steps. Tactical Resume Layout is a great article by Amy Goley. Visit https://acp-advisornet.org/articles/38/tactical-resume-layout to follow her tips.