Krystal Yates ⋅ Lewisville, TX EBR Consulting, LLC ⋅ 19 years experience

Hi Nilda, if you are applying online, the best way is to make sure your resume is "ATS Optimized". That means that the applicant tracking software will pick up all of the relevant keywords. To determine what the keywords are for your industry, choose three or four relevant job postings and look for the recurring buzzwords. Now, make sure those are in your resume at least one.

Additionally, make sure that your resume speaks to your ability to do the specific job for which you are applying. Resumes should no longer show every last skill you have; rather, they should focus on the ones the hiring manager wants to see.

Finally, network, network, network. Getting in front of the recruiter personally rather than relying on your resume is far more effective.

While it is possible that your seniority is hurting you, it isn't likely. It is probably a disconnect between your resume and your skillset.

Ed Saavedra ⋅ El Segundo, CA Raytheon ⋅ 23 years experience

Nilda. There is a lot of filtering that goes on within job submissions. I wouldn't think your seniority would be the problem unless the role was entry level and you appear overqualified. One of the things I have noticed in Job Reqs is a required/desired skill set being outlined. It is essential for your resume to hit the required skillsets to get through the filtering. You may have to adjust your resume to use some of the key words being identified on any particular req.

Jason Bunyea ⋅ Brownsboro, AL Raytheon ⋅ 2 years experience

Hi Nilda!

As Krystal and Ed mentioned, it is FAR more likely that the computer is not seeing you as a match for some reason. You need to make sure that you tailor your resume specifically to your prospective job. You don't need to have every desired, or even required, skill/keyword in the job requisition. The more you have, however, the better a fit the computer thinks you will be for the organization. From personal experience I know this is a painful and tedious process, but it's a much better feeling once you start getting calls from Talent Acquisition!

Also, and I have 0% support for this, but, when I was researching resume writing and the job application process, I read an article that stated many of the resume filtering systems are older and do not handle newer resume formats very well. It also said that tables, fancy formatting, and all the bells and whistles we use to get the recruiter and hiring manager to notice us probably work against us by confusing the software from a decades ago. Not wanting to take any chances, I started making very simple *.txt resumes in Notepad. Again, I can't prove that I needed to go to that extreme, but, if you have a lot of embellishments in a PDF file, you may want to simplify it some and try an older MSWord "resume.doc".

Best of luck!

Jason

Nilda Toro ⋅ Hialeah, FL U.S. Army, Lieutenant Colonel ⋅ 28 years served

Thank you to both. Both points are very important.