Veronica from Austin, Texas had been working for the same company for more than six years and had planned to stay there until her retirement. But last November, when the company closed her office, she began a job search she never planned for.
A “Pretty” Resume with No Results
Since Veronica’s entire regional office was laid off, the company called in an agency to help their former employees update their resumes.
“They told us about the action words and how important those are and also how the resume should look really pretty and all of this, and they formatted it and things like that, but they didn’t tell us about what the ATS was doing,” Veronica said.
The agency was primarily concerned with making the resume look clean and formatted. Unfortunately, a pretty resume isn’t enough to break through the ATS.
From November to January, Veronica submitted her resume to countless jobs and couldn’t understand why she wasn’t getting any callbacks or activity. She was, after all, doing exactly what the agency told her to do.
The Missing Link in the ATS to Hiring Manager Chain
Even though her resume looked perfect, when Veronica discovered Jobscan and uploaded her resume beside a job description, the results were less than ideal.
“When I put it into your system, guess what came back? The percentage was like 33%,” she told me. “I said ‘oh my gosh, this is probably why I’m not getting any calls because I have the skillset.’”
Veronica was shocked, and quickly blew through her 5 free scans. She decided to invest in Jobscan Premium. Then, the pandemic hit.
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Job Searching During a Pandemic
Veronica told herself to keep applying, even though the administrative field was hit especially hard. She knew there was a job out there for her and was committed to pushing forward and finding it.
While she didn’t get hired immediately, there was one big change that happened. She stopped receiving the dreaded automated emails that said things like, “your not qualified” and “sorry, we’ve chosen another candidate.” She felt this was a sign that her resume was actually making it into the running.
“I needed to get past that system. I needed to get past that computer to someone live,” Veronica explained.
Her strategy when using Jobscan was to put as much time into each resume as necessary to reach an 80% match rate. While the updates were often tedious, and her score would only raise about 10% each time, she knew the competition was only getting higher and this would set her apart.
Finally, Veronica got an interview. Then, she got a second interview. Within a month, she was hired for the exact position she was looking for in administration.
You Can Get Hired During Uncertain Times
Veronica is one of many people who was laid off in 2020. If you’ve been laid off and are having trouble getting hired, don’t lose hope. Jobscan can help you expedite your job search by making your resume more competitive.
