A 2018 survey conducted by LinkedIn, found that 67% of Human Resource professionals are using technology to help them save time during their advertising, hiring, and onboarding processes. In addition to that, it’s reported that 75% of submitted resumes are never read by a human.
As a job seeker, these numbers may seem scary, but there are plenty of things you can do to improve your chances. By making your resume AI-friendly you can make it easier for bots to understand your relevant skills and move you on to the next stage.
Four Ways to Make Your Resume AI-Friendly
Get to the Point
As an applicant, it is natural to want to show employers that you’re a great team player and that you always go above and beyond. Bots, however, aren’t looking for those skills. Your limited resume real estate can be better used by highlighting your specific skills and accomplishments.
For example, if you’re a talented graphic designer, avoid using phrases like “creative visionary” or “world-class brand guru.” Try something more specific like “graphic designer with advanced skills in Photoshop and InDesign.”
Once your resume gets passed the bots, you’ll have an opportunity to show off your amazing personality and skills to the hiring committee.
Use Keywords
Review the job description to find the most important skills and experiences hiring managers are looking for. Do they mention specific programs, education levels, or hard skills? If you have experiences that showcase what they’re looking for, make sure you use the same, or similar, words used in the job description to describe them.
If you are having trouble identifying which keywords are the most important there are several things you can do to help you prioritize. One quick tool you can use is a word cloud. A word cloud is a visual display of the most frequent words used in a body of text. Copy and paste the job description into a free world cloud tool and see which words are the largest. Focus on these words.
Using keywords appropriately is crucial, as it can be easy to overdo it. Once you’ve identified the most important keywords stick to using them 1-2 times throughout your resume and try to incorporate them naturally. At some point your resume may be read by a human, so it still needs to be easy to read and understand!
Use the Right Format
Do you ever wonder why applications ask you to upload a resume and then fill in all the information again? It’s because it’s difficult for AI to read a PDF file. While it does take a lot of time and may be frustrating, make sure you take extra care to fill these fields in. Knowing this, consider uploading your resume as a Word document instead of a PDF in situations that don’t have this added step.
If you do opt to submit Word document, it’s important you refrain from using the Header and Footer options. Bots do not typically scan these sections, so if you have important information there it could be overlooked.
Test it out!
Before you submit your resume, take a minute to see what it will look like to a bot. Copy and paste your text into a plain text reader. Does it look jumbled or disorganized? That will make it more difficult for a bot to read.
If this happens to you, your next step is to remove the formatting from the text in your document. Once you’ve stripped the formatting, you will need to add your bullets and headers back in. When you’re doing this be sure to use the standard options (bold headers, square/circle bullets).
You Have an AI-Friendly Resume – Now What?
It’s time to apply to jobs! Visit our job board to find current openings at deaf-friendly companies. You can also follow Communication Service for the Deaf on Facebook to get job updates on every Wednesday.