How Do You Beat Resume Reading Robots?

Jan. 2023
By NTI

When you are applying for a job, chances are a robot is going to see your resume before a human does. Companies are use artificial intelligence applicant tracking systems to weed out applicants who aren’t a fit for the position. 

“This allows them to save a great deal of time,” said Alan Hubbard, NTI’s Chief Operating Officer. “You need to know what will get you past the robot stage into a human being’s hands.”

How it works is information is loaded into the system, and then job seekers are issued a personalized candidate with all their information available for the hiring manager. After that, hiring managers take advantage of key words to identify people they want to take to for the job. A tip on selecting the right key words is to look at the job description and see what terms they have in the advertisement, according to the Muse. 

“Machine learning can cherry-pick and rapidly learn from the employer how to do a lookalike search,” said Ian Siegel, the CEO of ZipRecruiter, in a CNBC article. “That turns out to be by far the best method you can use to match.”  

So how to you get by the AI to get the person doing the hiring? 

One thing you want do with key words is to create a skills section on your resume to highlight what you can do. You also want to make sure your resume is using the right tenses and doesn’t have any spelling mistakes.  

“Mistakes with those two things can knock you right out of consideration,” said Hubbard. “The past way to defend against AI is having a great, knock them dead resume.” 

NTI helps Americans with disabilities and their caregivers find at-home employment with free training and job placement services. You can register at www.nticentral.org.