Pro Tip : Your CV is supposed to give me an idea of YOU, not be just a massive list of keywords. That's not how hiring works.
I think if you’re getting filtered out before you speak to a human being, then you’re doing it wrong.It works to get through the ATS which is a problem on its own these days.
There’s already stuff out there to a degree.I hear a company has started offering AI interviewer services. How long before we see AI interviewee services?![]()
we’re hiring in the Indian market at this stage for a specific cloud platform, so can’t comment on UK candidates.
I think if you’re getting filtered out before you speak to a human being, then you’re doing it wrong.
You need to not just be a name on a system among a list of other names.
The point of my advice was that you need to build some personal relationships with people, and not just be an application in a pile. Get in touch with people on LinkedIn, go to conferences, do some volunteer work, catch up with old colleagues and previous employers. Just get yourself out there and skip the whole ATS part.The issue become applications are then mutually exclusive from each filtering stage. You (the employer) ends up with zero candidates and, paradoxically if fails you in the longer term as candidates remain on the jobless heap for longer and then rejected automatically because the fear of eroded skills prompted filtering of longer unemployment.
I've just rewritten my CV once again yesterday - changing the format slightly of the contextual achievement and skills demonstrated bullet points.
I feel like a cat burglar attempting to find the combination to the ATS lock.. perhaps I should remove my software engineering degree date as it's the only date beyond 7 years on resume.. (1992-96, so 29 years ago!). I keep my resume to 2 pages - brief intro, recent professional experience, education, certificates and published papers.
The point of my advice was that you need to build some personal relationships with people, and not just be an application in a pile. Get in touch with people on LinkedIn, go to conferences, do some volunteer work, catch up with old colleagues and previous employers. Just get yourself out there and skip the whole ATS part.
I did a couple of months part-time hourly paid work at a local uni, which was really good for networking opportunities. The work was a nice change from before, and put me in touch with a whole bunch of people (and loads of graduates who are going out into industry). Pretty easy to get the work too, I just had one 30 minutes phone call and that was that. Pay can be alright depending on how much marking you do.I've gone to conferences and hackathons but I have to be selective given the cost of commuting to London, especially if it starts at 9am in the peak times. I catch up with the Oxford uni group, many of them are in the same boat.
The obvious step is the volunteer side of things, I'm assuming over 50 and you'll not have the option of army IT/cyber as a reservist so I'll have a look locally.
The point of my advice was that you need to build some personal relationships with people, and not just be an application in a pile. Get in touch with people on LinkedIn, go to conferences, do some volunteer work, catch up with old colleagues and previous employers. Just get yourself out there and skip the whole ATS part.
Thats perfectly fine if you are a spring chicken or work in STEM.
But if you are 50+ or part of the "Go learn a trade bro!" group. People haven't got the time or energy to be doing that sort of running around.
If you don't have the time or energy, then presumably they already have a job, and the need isn't that pressing.Thats perfectly fine if you are a spring chicken or work in STEM.
But if you are 50+ or part of the "Go learn a trade bro!" group. People haven't got the time or energy to be doing that sort of running around.
As poster above said mate, it's ATS systems that have caused this and stupid people who work in HR/hiring, and stupidest of all recruiters who are all thick as ****.I had a few CVs land on my desk (figuratively of course).....I hadn't realised how insane the hiring market has got. The games industry is pretty straightforward, you look at what studios a candidate has worked at, which projects they were on, and what job titles.....and you've got a decent summary of their experience.
Got a collection of Python CVs the other day....just ROFL. They look like an absolute joke word salad. Made me really miss working in C++ where people actually have to build **** and not just pull in endless reams of dependencies and call themselves a software engineer. Python Package Manager is probably more apt, and I doubt many of them are good that.
There was one decent CV in the pile that actually wrote out their experience in plain english and hadn't run it through an AI service.....but it was eye opening. No wonder people are struggling to get interviews if that was any way representative.....just one pile of meaningless tech stack words next to another hundred piles of meaningless tech stack words.
Pro Tip : Your CV is supposed to give me an idea of YOU, not be just a massive list of keywords. That's not how hiring works.
Many candidates are not using AI for CV because they are lazy.
I remember seeing courses "How to make your CV beat the ATS" What was recruiters expecting after all these years of jumping through hoops? Now we have a out turn of CVs lacking effort.
It shouldn't be disheartening, it should be expected in 2025. So many years of automatic rejections after 5mins applying for a job and its at 2am in the morning. Clear sign nobody even bothered to read the CV you spent hours doing. We have all been there.