Human contact, whether through professional networks, social connections, or earned reputation, remains important and should in no way be minimized when describing the recruitment and hiring process. In any case, it is essential. However, another very important path to cover when developing one’s career is that driven by existing and emerging technologies aimed at streamlining and optimizing the employment process.
Today, this ranges from online job boards that post positions to applicant tracking systems (ATS) that analyze resumes for human resources and recruiters, and now artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning tools, designed to assess the employability of the candidates. How to position yourself to the advantage of 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, rare or complicated. They are little more than interactive websites that post job descriptions from employers. More recent are job search engines such as Indeed and Simply Hired that scour the Internet aggregating job listings from a variety of sources.
These sites are alluring because they give the appearance of a job store with a plethora of booths ready for you to pick up while you shop. A common and ineffective ploy is to spend hours responding to jobs on boards and all you get 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 generated. It is recommended that you spend 10-20% of your job search time using the boards, 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 earned, etc., which are most helpful to hiring managers when determining whom to contact for interviews. For those of us trying to secure an interview, we should consider building keyword-rich resumes with contextually used terms that align our skills and knowledge with the responsibilities and deliverables mentioned in job descriptions.
Therefore, given the need for an ATS-compliant resume that is also attractive to human readers, the challenge is to achieve a visually appealing format that does not confuse ATS. 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, strong content, so your resume won’t be seen. as one more portion. of white bread. Reaching this level of curriculum 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 thinking in evolution is to further evaluate the personality with the aim of finding a complete 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 any case, developing a consistent brand and value proposition that includes both your technical talents and your work style/interpersonal characteristics across all platforms can be a good idea to introduce 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.
