Ask A Resume Writer

I’m seeing requests from clients in government jobs to write resumes so that they can APPLY FOR THEIR OWN JOBS THAT THEY ALREADY HAVE.

It is intensely aggravating to see clients insist that something is wrong with their resume because “AI systems are automatically rejecting it" instead of seeing AI systems as fundamentally flawed.

There should be some reasonable relationship between your work history and the job to which you are applying.

“I want to work for your company because I like your products” isn’t enough to cut it if you have no prior experience related to the job description.

Some misconceptions that have become popular:

1. I want to tap into the “hidden” job market

2. I want to “beat the AI”.

People say these things without really knowing what they mean.

Seriously, don’t put WordPerfect on your resume, please.

Starting to see work come in from federal workers looking to jump to the private sector.

Only thing is, they’ve spent their entire careers in these highly specific government roles.

It’s not like jumping from one fishbowl to another, this is more like “evolve limbs and climb onto land”.

It’s that time of year where casual inquiries a month ago from potential clients about having their resumes written turn into full-blown emergencies today.

I have a client who is super proud of the work that they did with AT&T and wants to include it on the resume.

Only problem is - they worked for AT&T starting in 1988. Absolutely no way should you have work history that’s nearly 40 years old on your resume.

Helpful Hint:

Before you put something like “doubled territory from $18MM to $48MM” in your resume, please check your math.

I believe that the exact opposite of “use Track Changes to communicate edits” are clients who:

1. Print out the draft

2. Mark up the draft by hand

3. Scan the hardcopy back to a digital file

4. Email that file to me as an attachment

Hey, whatever works.

TIL there’s a city called Midwest City, OK.

I thought a client was just trying to be generic, but I googled it and yup, real place.

The actual ATS used by corporations is locked within proprietary HRIS applications.

I told the client, it’s like people want a resume to “beat” an unknowable algorithm in a black box.

The answer, as I’ve outlined, is both simpler and more complex than that.

Anyway, the analogy I always use is that any consumer-facing ATS / Resume Scoring system is like the “free credit score” that is offered to you by a bank or credit card.

That credit score bears little relation to the actual proprietary risk scoring algorithm used by a bank to decide on a loan.

Examples being “there are number of grammatical errors in your resume” but the report never specifies, because literally no one has actually read its contents.

It’s like a horoscope. People will see themselves in a generic paragraph.

And speaking of ATS scoring, there is no such thing as a reliable and accurate consumer-facing ATS / resume scoring system.

All of these sites purporting to “score” your resume are just trying to hook you for paid resume writing services.

Most “score reports” are just boilerplate copy anyway.

I also tell people that it’s not a situation where a resume that gets an ATS score of 90 gets a call / interview, and one with a score of 89 doesn’t.

Companies use ATS as a gatekeeper so that the recruiter, who is probably looking at hundreds of resumes for each opening, doesn’t have to waste their energy reviewing candidates who absolutely do not meet minimum requirements for a job posting.

This is a long explanation, but here goes.

ATS, when used properly, is just a gatekeeper. When a job posting says “minimum 5 years experience” or “Bachelor’s degree required”, the job of ATS is to block any applicant who hasn’t read the directions and doesn’t meet minimum requirements.

Just had a conversation with a client about the “I need a resume that will beat the ATS” thing.

I told him that people give way too much credit to ATS applications without knowing what they actually do.

They think ATS is a supercomputer when in fact it’s that toddler toy with shapes and holes.

Generally speaking, the same people who copy and paste the job descriptions written by HR into their resumes are going to be the ones who try to use AI to write their resumes.

And AI will just….copy and paste job descriptions it finds on the Internet.

Just to kick things off, some best practices:

1. There is no one page rule unless you’re just out of school and have no work history.

2. Nothing earlier than Obama.

3. There’s no such thing as “beating the ATS”.

I found myself answering the same questions over and over from clients, so I’ve decided to start this account.