Human contact, whether through professional networks, social connections, or earned reputation, remains important and should not be minimized in any way when describing the recruiting and hiring process. In any case, it is paramount. Yet another very important path to cover in developing one’s career is that fueled by existing and emerging technologies aimed at streamlining and optimizing the employment process.
Today, this ranges from online job boards that advertise positions, to Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) that analyze HR and recruiter resumes, and now artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning tools, designed to assess the employability of candidates. Positioning yourself advantageously for these digital assistants and gatekeepers should be a key component of a well-planned career growth strategy. Let’s take a current look at each of these technical features.
Online job boards are not very new, scarce or complicated. They are little more than interactive websites that post job descriptions from employers. More recent are job search engines like Indeed and Simply Hired that scour the internet aggregating job postings from a variety of sources.
These sites are alluring because they give the appearance of a job store with a plethora of positions ready for you to pick up while you shop. A common and ineffective ploy is to spend hours responding to jobs on boards and the only thing generated is recruiters trying to lure you into high turnover 100% commission sales jobs. However, working with job boards is not a complete waste of time and decent jobs can be created. It is recommended that you spend 10-20% of your job search time using the dashboards, being careful and discriminating in what you answer.
ATS software allows recruiters to organize extensive lists of applicants and their relevant criteria, such as qualifications, employment history, degrees held, etc., which are most helpful to hiring managers in determining whom to contact for interviews. For those of us trying to secure an interview, consider preparing keyword-rich resumes with contextually used terms that align our skills and knowledge with the responsibilities and outcomes mentioned in the job descriptions.
So, given the need for an ATS-compliant resume that is also attractive to human readers, the challenge is to come up with a visually appealing format that doesn’t confuse ATSs. This can be tricky. If you want a designer resume that looks like the ones on a photo collection website, then forget about passing the ATS test. And with so many companies employing ATS, the best strategy may be to pay homage to the many conditions necessary to not be digitally rejected in a millisecond, while adding enough optics, and of course solid content, so that your resume doesn’t see as one more portion. of white bread. Reaching this level of resume optimization is a necessary goal.
The latest trend, which is expected to proliferate in use and sophistication, involves the impact of AI on hiring decision making. There is a growing perception that relying solely on a candidate’s skills does not consistently produce better employees. The evolving thought is to further assess personality with the goal of finding a well-rounded and compatible colleague. To this end, AI is being deployed to identify personality traits gleaned from resumes, online profiles, social media presence, video appearances, you name it. This is apparently considered less biased than human observers. We will see. (Can’t algorithms be biased too?)
In either case, developing a consistent brand and value proposition that includes both your technical talents and work style/interpersonal characteristics across all platforms can be a good idea to pitch to human and tech appraisers alike.
Being prepared for changes and the invasion of technology in hiring decisions and, by extension, in professional development, has become an imperative in today’s world of work.