In 2018, Stefan from Denver got laid off by his employer of 20 years. Not having conducted a job search in more than two decades, he had no idea how to get started.

“I was already 58 years old. I found myself on the job market, basically for the first time, having to look for and compete for a job,” he told me.

Many people affected by the current surge in layoffs can relate to the disorienting feeling of entering the job market after being employed for several years. But for Stefan, there was an additional component. The past 30 years of his IT career had been spent working with one specific software product. 

“I really had a very dedicated and specialized career.”

Job Search 101

Stefan said when it came to learning about the modern day job search, he had to start from the very beginning, calling it “Job Search 101”.

He explained,“Since I’ve never had to do this I was kind of unprepared. I had to learn everything from scratch.”

Stefan knew he needed to call in the experts, so he used his local resources for help, which included hiring a career coach. Additionally, he went to a job center in Denver and attended all of the activities they offered, including classes and presentations. The very first class he attended was centered around keyword matching and building word clouds. He hadn’t previously known how important keywords are in a job search or about the prevalence of applicant tracking systems.

“I guess I was naive and I believed that by submitting a resume, somebody would actually read it and see and understand how great I am, “ he laughed.

Slow and Steady Wins the Interview

Jobscan was recommended to Stefan during that first class he attended at his local career center, and he started using the resume optimization tool right away.

Jobscan’s end goal is always the same: to help job seekers create an ATS-optimized resume. What’s so interesting, though, is how each job seeker uses the product in different ways to reach that end goal.

Stefan is a highly technical person, and his method for using Jobscan reflected his technical mind. He took a slow and detailed approach, making little edits here and there and running frequent rescans.

“I found it motivating to see the score going up each time,” he said of his frequent scanning strategy.

Stefan reported a 20% success rate to interview when using Jobscan. Meaning, for every 10 jobs he applied for, he received an interview for two. After several months, he landed a job that was very similar to his previous job. But this time, he’s working with a totally different software.

Stefan believes Jobscan played a positive role in his job search.

“For me it was really an indispensable tool, just to give me the confidence that I submitted the best resume I can to get past the ATS,” he said.

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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