Took me 6 months to realize my resume was getting auto-rejected by keyword filters

I was applying to like 50 jobs a month and getting zero callbacks for almost half a year. Turns out I was using the wrong industry terms for my skills, like saying 'managed social media' instead of 'content strategy' or 'community management.' A recruiter friend finally told me to copy paste the job description into a word cloud and match the exact phrases. Has anyone else had their application process totally stall out because of this stuff?

2 comments

2 Comments

grant.jason1mo ago

Did you ever try just copying the exact words from the job ad into your resume? I used to think that was cheating or whatever, but then I did it for an IT support job and got three interviews that month. I changed 'fixed computers' to 'troubleshot hardware issues' and 'resolved ticket escalations'... crazy how small word swaps make that big of a difference.

king.kevin1mo ago

That thing about copying the exact words from the job ad is wild. I actually heard somewhere that those automated resume scanners look for specific keywords, so if you don't use their exact wording it might just get tossed before a human even sees it. Makes sense why swapping "fixed computers" to "troubleshot hardware issues" worked out so well for you.