Human contact, whether through professional networks, social connections, or by earned reputation, is still important and should in no way be minimized when describing the recruiting and hiring process. In any case, it is paramount. However, another very important track to cover when developing a career is that driven by existing and emerging technologies aimed at streamlining and optimizing the employment process.
Today this ranges from online job board advertising positions to applicant tracking systems (ATS) that analyze HR and recruiters resumes, and now artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning tools, designed to assess the employability of candidates. How to position yourself advantageously for these digital aids and gatekeepers should be a key component of a well-planned career growth strategy. Let’s take a current look at each of these technical features.
Online job boards are not very new, rare or complicated. They are little more than interactive websites that post job descriptions for employers. More recent are job search engines like Indeed and Simply Hired that are scouring the internet for job postings from a variety of sources.
These sites are seductive because they give the appearance of a work shop with a large number of stalls ready for you to pick up as you shop. A common and ineffective ploy is spending hours responding to board jobs and all that is generated are recruiters trying to lure you into high-turnover 100% commissioned sales jobs. However, working with job boards is not a complete waste of time and decent jobs can be generated. It is recommended to spend between 10% and 20% of your job search time using the boards being careful and discriminating in what you answer.
ATS software enables recruiters to organize extensive lists of applicants and their relevant criteria, such as qualifications, work history, degrees earned, etc., which are most helpful to hiring managers when determining who to contact for interviews. For those of us trying to secure an interview, we must consider preparing resumes that contain many keywords with contextual usage terms that align our skills and knowledge with the responsibilities and deliverables mentioned in the job descriptions.
Therefore, given the need for an ATS-compliant resume that is also attractive to human readers, the challenge is to achieve a visually appealing format that does not confuse the ATS. This can be tricky. If you want a designer resume that looks like a photo collection website, forget about passing the ATS exam. And with so many companies employing ATS, the best strategy may be to pay tribute to the many conditions necessary to not be digitally rejected in a millisecond, while adding enough optics and, of course, solid content, so that your resume doesn’t look like one more serving. of white bread. Reaching this level of resume optimization is a necessary goal.
The latest trend, which is expected to proliferate in usage and sophistication, involves the impact of AI on hiring decision making. There is a growing perception that relying solely on a candidate’s skills is not consistently producing better employees. Evolving thinking is evaluating personality further with the goal of finding a well-rounded and compatible colleague. To this end, artificial intelligence is being implemented to identify personality traits obtained from resumes, online profiles, social media presences, video appearances, whatever. Apparently this looks less biased than human observers. We will see. (Can’t algorithms be skewed as well?)
In any case, developing a consistent brand and value proposition that includes both your technical talents and your work style / interpersonal characteristics across all platforms can be a good idea to present to human and technology evaluators alike.
Being prepared for changes and the invasion of technology in hiring decisions and, by extension, professional development, has become an imperative in today’s world of work.
