Why did it take me 8 years to realize I was supposed to tailor my resume to each job posting instead of just sending the same one everywhere

I got rejected from 15 roles in a row last year for entry level analyst positions in Austin before a recruiter friend pointed out my application looked like I was just copy-pasting into a black hole, and now I feel like an idiot for wondering why my inbox was so quiet.

3 comments

3 Comments

kelly_nelson9517d ago

Yeah it's wild how nobody tells you this stuff upfront. My cousin went through something similar with her graphic design applications she was sending out the same portfolio link and generic cover letter to like 50 places and nothing. She finally had a friend who works in HR sit down and show her how to match her project descriptions to the exact words the job post was using and suddenly she got interviews. @holly_henderson86 that's exactly what she did with the keyword highlighting thing. It's honestly kind of annoying because it feels like you're just playing a game with robots instead of showing real skills but it works. I think schools and career centers should teach this from day one but instead they just say network and be confident.

danielw8817d ago

Yeah man, I learned that lesson the hard way too - matching keywords is the only way to get past their stupid bots.

holly_henderson8618d ago

My best friend literally screenshotted her own resume and showed me the Word doc side by side with the job description and I was like oh. She had highlighted keywords from the post in yellow and rewritten her bullet points to match their exact language. I used to think tailoring was just changing the company name and maybe the date range. Honestly it changed my whole approach when I realized recruiters are scanning for specific terms and if you don't have them you just look like a spammer. Ngl I still hate doing it but the difference in callback rate is night and day.