A recruiter's tips for getting a job

Job seekers should not be afraid to use AI to beef up their resumes if they are struggling to find work, a recruitment expert says.

With unemployment up, it can be a tough market out there if you're looking for a job. The latest figures put the unemployment rate up to 4.3 percent for the March quarter, from 4 percent on the previous quarter.

Job ad numbers from Seek released last week showed a drop of 8 percent in June and 35 percent down year on year.

"At the moment, it is quite a competitive labour market and we're seeing that from the Seek data in all regions across New Zealand," Leah Lambart, who runs career counselling service ReLaunch Me and is Seek's resident careers coach, told RNZ's Nine to Noon on Wednesday.

"There are more candidates and obviously [it's] a more competitive industry as a result."

The first thing to stand out, Lambart recommended, was knowing exactly what kind of role you wanted.

"It's very difficult to have a successful job search if you are just throwing resumes at lots of different jobs without really tailoring your documents for each role.

"So I think, first of all, really thinking about the types of roles you should be applying for, based on your experience, your skills and your industry background, and thinking about the level of responsibility you want as well.

"So if candidates are really clear on what they're looking for, usually they they have a much better approach in terms of writing resumes, cover letters and also interview skills."

When it comes to writing a CV, she said it was important to the right words - since recruiters nowadays were frequently using "applicant tracking systems" to save time finding the best candidates.

"That is basically recruitment software that is screening or scanning your resume against some keywords that have been in the job or the position description."

The front page and/or cover letter should also have a "clear pitch around your overall experience and strengths and how it relates to the role".

"I would always include a very specific skills section that also is aligned to the skills or the criteria that they're looking for… stripping out things that are not relevant anymore and including evidence of skills and also achievements that back up those skills."

When the job market is competitive, Lambert said it was common to get rejected, or not even hear back from an employer.

"Perhaps speak with someone in recruitment - it might be a friend who is used to reviewing resumes or hiring candidates, or potentially going to a career coach to first of all see, you know, is there anything obvious that you are doing that might be preventing you from getting an interview? For example, that could mean that you are using a really out-of-date resume template that might be five, six, seven pages long, where these days a contemporary resume is more like a marketing document that's almost like a snapshot of your best experience that would be two or three pages long.

"So it could be something obvious like that, which could be easily fixed in a couple of days…

"Often when I'm reviewing resumes and cover letters, you know, candidates actually aren't doing anything wrong. It's just the volume of applicants and perhaps there's some people that are a closer fit. And in this sort of market, sometimes there's not really much that you can do other than using your network - being on LinkedIn, having a good personal brand and online presence that will increase your chances of perhaps being invited to an interview."

Some things that can be left out of resumes include your age, when you studied and anything else older than 10 or 15 years that is not directly relevant to the role, she said.

"I would never put my birthdate on my resume… particularly if you graduated a long time ago. It's not relevant really, anymore. So even with your experience, when we would write resumes for our clients, we would only go back 10 or 15 years at the most. So you don't have to include everything that you've done on your resume - just the more recent experience that is going to be more relevant to the role you're applying for."

If you keep getting rejected after interviews, Lambert recommends reading up on the 'star format'. The government's careers site has an explainer on what that is.

But if writing a good resume has you stumped, Lambert said not to be afraid to turn to computer aids like ChatGPT for help.

"I would always recommend AI - fantastic tool, I use it myself. Great way to start, give you a bit of structure - but I would always be really careful to try and bring your own voice into ChatGPT letters so that, you know, it definitely is a bit more personalised. You definitely don't want employers getting the same cover letter from every applicant."