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I am getting frustrated and feel it is a waste of time to apply to large corporate jobs via their corporate career page. It’s that everytime I try to upload my resume as a pdf, the auto fill their sites shoot back in subsequent pages is all code gibberish. This makes me doubt the reliability of their software to scan and filter my application in the first place. I have tried doc files too from Word (obviously) and get the same results. Is there any way I can check for myself to see that everything is ending up as it is intended?

Currently I’m just correcting everything as I go along though the applications.

Thanks.

It bites but each company that has this type of process needs to be individually dealt with. What helps is to create your resume in various format, PDF, Word doc. TXT doc. Thus you can control the way it looks when submitted. i.e many word docs that have bullet points get messed up when translated into their auto fill system so keep one clean and simple.

This in my opinion hurts the companies hiring process because the are making everything a commonality and they don’t get the chance to “critique” the resume. But like a great quote from a fav movie “We adapt, we improvise and we over come”

These days I don’t expect much when applying to large companies unless I have a foot in the door, via knowing a person at the company. Submitting your stuff through an automated system is a bit like writing your resume in sand and dropping it in the desert. Still worth doing in the hopes that you stand out from the crowd, but many times easier if you can navigate the process through personal connections.

I hate to say it but this is where a headhunter is useful, but i have always been weary of this profession as some of them can do you more harm then good.

Headhunters/agencies have been mostly positive experiences for me, personally. People should definitely consider them.

I agree my latest job was obtained through a head hunter who provided the foot in the door. But i have had hunters contact me wanting me to apply for ME jobs and when i say im not qualified they say but don’t you want to consider other career paths… Those are the ones who don’t understand the profession. I also had one who insisted i remove my College Adjunct experience from my resume because “no employer would care about that”

Some are simply out to put a person in a position and get paid not caring if it is a right fit. Some can be great to work with and have the best interest for the company and you in mind, those are the ones you want to work with.

Good call on arranging resume in various formats. Often even though you might have a ‘foot in the door’ the HR process will require a candidate to submit the online form as well. Ultimately it shouldn’t make a difference, but its just a requirement.

Thanks for the feedback! I’ll try that. I have worked with recruiters a little bit in the past. The last headhunter I spoke with from a notable agency was odd, just the whole conversation was off, it felt like she had not prepared at all to call me.

I read somewhere (maybe here?) about someone who would put all kinds of keywords in white on white on the bottom of his resume. You would not see it, it would not print but spiders would pick it up.
Apparently this lead to great success.

I haven’t tried it but I thought it was a clever way to beat the system and at least get your resume looked at.

I had a head hunter pose as a recruiter from the company I wanted to apply to. Turns out he was some weasel that applied for me, all but ruining my chance of actually applying to that company.

Is it a faux pas to ask for another man’s recruiter? If not, I’d love to have some names of excellent recruiters.

HA! Brilliant. I’m not surprised. I have been told to use a word cloud generator to pick out key words, I do it because my source on this was very legit, I personally find it silly.

Whats wrong with putting the keywords in your resume? Is this not how modern resume reading software works?

Anyway, I went for a freelance gig last week. I was approached by an agency that has placed me in the past.

Job spec with several agencies - get to interview to discover that job spec is nothing like what was advertised.

Not only that, sent my resume to recruiter and they used it to write the most poorly written summary I’ve ever seen, full of typos, bad grammar. Sigh.