How to interpret resume rejections

(Photo credit @jontyson)

How to interpret resume rejections

I had a call recently with a client who had gotten 5 rejections from his job applications in quick succession. From this limited info, he had decided that he was not going to get a job in tech and that he should now start working on plan B. Since he was still very early in his job search process, we started by discussing how to interpret a few resume rejections before wholly changing your career goals. 

1. First, identify the factors that might be in consideration for why he was rejected. 

   1. As candidates, your first few applications may not be well-targeted as you are starting to learn about your interests. Take an objective look at your application to see where the misalignment was, or consider any external factors that may have had an impact. 

   2. In this case, his candidate profile showed he had fewer years of work experience than some of his peer applicants, he required immigration sponsorship, and his applications weren’t well-targeted towards his actual interests. (He was lured by the ease of submitting LinkedIn Jobs applications.) 

2. Second, what factor(s) can you NOT change?

   1. In the book Designing Your Life by Bill Burnett & Dave Evans, they being by asking whether you’re facing a ‘gravity problem.’ A gravity problem is a problem that is not actionable. They are fixed and the only way to handle them is to accept the situation for what it is or reframe the way you think about it. 

   2. With this client, two of the rejections came from companies that he knew did not provide sponsorship. As he had no control over those immigration policies, it was better to move on as he was only partially interested in these companies anyway. (I’ll discuss how to think about immigration status in a future newsletter.)

3. Third, what CAN you control or change for future applications? 

   1. Resume rejections should give you some information to help you modify your strategy. Here are a variety of options we discussed: select a different set of companies to consider? Re-evaluate which role(s) to apply to? Network with employees who could tell you about ‘hidden’ job requirements? Get referrals to boost your credibility with the recruiter/company? Revise your resume again to be even more targeted? Seek out new projects/experiences & add them to your resume? 

   2. All of these actions (and more!) are within your control to help improve your application outcome. 

Resume rejections can be super frustrating, but it is worth it to take the time to figure out why they happened to the best of your ability. Sometimes there’s no good reason for being rejected (that we know about) -- but in most cases, you have info that can provide insights. Then you can use those insights to make better decisions for the next set of applications. 

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WANT A CAREER IN TECH BUT AREN’T SURE WHERE TO START? TAKE A LOOK AT MY COURSE, ‘TECH SEARCH COMPASS’ FOR STEP-BY-STEP SUPPORT

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#momentofzen

Customizing your resume

(Photo credit @craftedbygc)

When applying to a job in tech, use the bullets of the job description as a checklist.

• Take any well-written job description which can help you to do two things: customize your resume for the specific job/company AND allow you to conduct a gap analysis of your skills. 

• Customizing resume:

  1. This is very important to do in tech, as most tech companies do not look at cover letters -- so your resume has to do the double duty of telling your story and describing your skills.

  2. The job description can also provide you with keywords that are important to the company, so make sure that you use their words in your resume whenever you can. 

• Skills Gap Analysis

  1. No candidate is an exact match for a job description (because then there would be no room for growth!). However, you want to have a high percentage of experiences/skills that the job requires (greater than 50%).

  2. If you don’t have a high percentage but are really interested in the job, then the job description can give you a list of skills & experience you need to go get - so you can add them to your resume!

• Once you’ve done this a few times, you’ll see the pattern and won’t need to spend a lot of time on each application. 

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#random

Platypuses Glow Under Blacklight. We Have No Idea Why. 

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Want personalized resume tips and career guidance? Take a look at my Career Strategy Session options.

Resume formula

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Use the XYZ formula on your resume.

1. When I was at Google, we appreciated candidates who articulated their resume bullets in terms of what you accomplished, not just what your job description was.

2. The formula we promoted was (and still is) “Accomplished [X] as measured by [Y], by doing [Z].” Here you are describing the impact your actions had while you worked in your role, as measured by some type of quantifiable metric. 

3. It sounds easy at first look, but it can be really hard to translate certain aspects of your job into measurable results. This article has some great examples to show you how to transform your bullets into accomplishment-focused ones.

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Want personalized resume tips and career guidance? Take a look at my Career Strategy Session options.

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#random

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