The Rigged Resume System

Why getting that interview is so freaking hard.

Resume writing is hard. 

For a lot of people, it's awful. It's uncomfortable and it's confusing. 

• How do you build the perfect resume for the perfect job?
• How many pages is it supposed to be? 
• Do you need more than one resume? 
• What are you supposed to do if you didn't finish college or maybe you took a few years off, or you've been working in a completely unrelated field than the one that you want to get into now? 
• How far back do you go? 

And here's a common resume question. What happens when you hit Apply Now? 

• Do you know where that resume goes or how it's assessed? 
• Do you realize that it's probably not getting reviewed by a human?
• Do you have a clear understanding of what you need to do to make sure your resume gets past the robots?
• If you don't, you're not alone. This stuff is insanely hard for everyone. 

You know, even copywriter’s who make a living writing, struggle to work this out.

That’s why we’re going to try and make building a resume survivable? Heck, even surthrivable!

If this goes as planned, you’ll feel strong enough to conquer your resume over the next several days as we introduce you to everything you need to know.

Welcome. I'm Eric Hansen, Chief Happiness Officer at FakeTie. My sole focus is helping professionals blow the socks off their peers, their bosses, and their future bosses, by providing the tools needed to wow the world.

And the first tool you need… is a resume!

You don't need strong writing skills, good grammar, and a fluffy-pretty template, you need to understand the game. Because that’s what it is. And it’s rigged against you.

So, that's what we're going to talk about first – The Rigged System. Then I’ll dive into modules which will walk you step-by-step through the process of developing your new, lit resume. 

Alright, let's do this. 

Lesson one, the perilous journey your resume takes and why you should give a damn. “It’s got something to do with keywords, right?” 

Nailed it… but there’s so much more.

Let's say you've just found an incredibly interesting job posted at your dream company. What do you do? You complete an application and upload your resume. And then, like magic, you hit Send. 

Where does that resume go? Does it go to somebody's desk? Is it your future boss? In most cases, especially in mid to large-size companies, it doesn't go to any of these people. It goes into that company's resume scanning software. If the software decides that you're a match, you get jettisoned onto the next boss-level with the other "best-match candidates." 

This software, called Applicant Tracking Software (ATS), sucks in all the applicant resumes, mines the data fields, and looks for very specific information. Information, by the way, was entered by a person who decides what’s important.

If your resume doesn’t meet the minimum requirements, you won’t even make it to a real human being.

Once the scan is complete, only the top 10 or 20 or 50 resumes will move forward in the journey. For context, recruiters get an average of 250 resumes per job listing so best-case scenario, you are competing for the top 20% of spots. Worst case? You’re battling the top 2.5% of applicants.

Poof! Boom! That ought to wake you up a little. You’re lucky if 15% of the time your resume gets past the front door.

For now, let's say your resume has made it past the software. It's on to the humans. Who exactly is that first person going to be? In larger companies, that person is often someone on the HR team. Best case scenario, this person knows the job inside and out. Unfortunately, HR people are often managing a ton of work and they don't often develop an understanding of the job, they're just comparing your resume to the job description so they can hurry and get you off their plate.

Here’s what happens between the lines:

First, the reviewer is probably not qualified to connect the dots for you. They don’t speak the fancy jargon you do, and they probably don’t care. They figure they’re just going to pass you along anyway, why waste time when the bot has already done the work for them?

And second, your reviewer has little incentive to connect the dots for you, because someone is going to be a super obvious match. 

In other words, most people assume the bot has done the hard work for them and trust the results will put the right people in front of the hiring manager. Be careful assuming that after you’ve cleared the bots, the HR rep deliberates wisely over your pretty picture and unique design… they almost certainly do not.

Your resume's final stop on this journey, the Final Boss Level, is the hiring manager. This is the point where you have all your superpowers at your disposal and hope to clear the minefield.

This – briefly – gets me to the reason you write a resume: to market yourself! It’s your brand. So, my mission is to land you in the “eff yes, hire them now” category using a different approach to marketing. We aren’t marketing stuff, we’re marketing you!

Over the next several days you and I will work together to promote you for that awesome job opp.

Check back to see what next steps must be taken to transform you from a level 1 noob to a level 100 Master of Resumes!