This is part of our Customer Stories series, where we ask real job seekers about their experience using Jobscan tools. Click here to read more stories.
An editor-in-chief of a regional magazine, Daniel found himself at a career crossroads when COVID-19 hit and he discovered how much he enjoyed working from home.
“I really thrive more in remote work,” he said, reflecting on his decision to leave a job he had enjoyed doing for eight years. “If they offered the opportunity to work remotely at that job I definitely would have stayed, but that wasn’t an option.”
His desire to work remotely wasn’t the only reason Daniel decided to leave. “It was 50-50 between remote work and getting paid a better living wage. There’s not a ton of money in the magazine business these days.”
The frustrations of unemployment
Unfortunately, Daniel’s quest for a new job was not without its challenges. “I was between jobs for about eight months. Frustration was pretty common,” Daniel said, echoing a sentiment familiar to many job seekers.
During his job search, Daniel encountered a familiar piece of advice: “You need to tailor your resume to each job description if you want to stand out.”
Tailoring your resume is crucial today because most companies use applicant tracking systems, or ATS, to help them manage the hiring process.
ATS is computer software that allows hiring managers to search through vast pools of applications using keywords from the job description. Job seekers must incorporate these keywords into their resumes to have any chance of getting noticed.
Tailoring resumes is highly effective, but it also poses a challenge. “It was time-consuming to pick out all the keywords from a job description and try to determine how important they are,” Daniel said. ”I can’t spend several days tailoring a resume.”
Creating better resumes, faster
The discovery of Jobscan marked a turning point in Daniel’s job search. “I was trying to look for a way to balance [tailoring resumes] with submitting a high volume of resumes because that’s pretty necessary too,” he said.
Thanks to Jobscan, Daniel was able to speed up the resume tailoring process and send out more high-quality resumes than before.
“I went from shooting for one really good job application a day to somewhere between three and five,’ he said. “I quadrupled the amount of jobs that I was applying to.”
In addition to Jobscan’s resume scanner, Daniel also used some of the other tools that come with the Premium package. “I used the LinkedIn Optimizer and the cover letter optimizer too.”
Finding the perfect job
The results were immediate. “I went from not getting interviews for months at a time and then during the last month before I actually got the job, I got three or four interviews,” Daniel said. “It was a definite change.”
Today, Daniel is a Marketing and Communications Specialist at a health and wellness company. His job not only allows him to work remotely but also satisfies his financial and professional aspirations.
“It’s kind of crazy how perfectly it fits what I was looking for the whole time,” he said.
Reflecting on his journey, Daniel attributes his success to the strategic use of Jobscan in optimizing his applications.
“It can seem like it’s a tradeoff between quality and quantity when you’re applying to jobs. And I feel like Jobscan allowed me to not have to choose one or the other,” he said. “I think that was super, super useful for me.”
If you’ve been laid off and are wondering what companies are hiring right now, Jobscan can help. Give Jobscan a try today.
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