How to write a resume that gets you an interview (All About ATS Part 2)

This is the second part of a two part series on crafting your resume to the way that companies are currently hiring.

Part 1 is all about how Applicant Tracking Systems work.

Part 2 teaches you how to specifically craft your resume to get through the ATS, recruiters, and land you a job.

This series is brought you to by Jobscan.co — scan your resume against your desired job description and optimize your resume, fast.

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In Part 1, we focused on ways the ATS might be programmed to reject you, and the tools that recruiters have to reject or move candidates forward en masse.

Today I want to get inside the recruiter’s head, and help you look at your resume from their perspective, so you can understand what they might be missing when you get overlooked.

Because that’s the key here: it’s not that you are missing something, or that you aren’t good enough – it’s that they are not understanding you or your story. For some, that’s on them – I can’t help you get past an uncaring or lazy recruiter – but for most, they just need a more complete picture, quickly, and they need your help to get there.

Think like a recruiter

When you find a job you really like, that you just know you would be perfect for, take a step back:

Imagine yourself as the person who is tasked with reviewing 1000 applicants for 1 position, on a deadline to deliver a shortlist of qualified candidates the hiring manager will be happy with.

Imagine yourself as empathetic and eager to help anyone you can, but with very real boundaries and stakeholders who may or may not be very kind to you or the candidates.

Imagine yourself being measured strictly quantitatively: how many people did you call today, how many interviews did you schedule, what is your phone-screen-to-hire rate?

Imagine that most people you come into contact with in and outside your company think they can do your job better than you do, and often will say that to your face.

With all of these forces colliding, how would you evaluate a candidate? What would you need to move someone forward?

And yes, this is a very generous read of recruiters. It doesn’t mean you can’t be frustrated with the system and the process, but it costs nothing to make generous assumptions — including assuming they’ll do the same for you.

Why are you applying for this job?

I know, I know – it’s the dreaded job application question, that makes you feel like you’re supposed to make up a bullshit answer that incorporates their values, mission, girlbossery, hustle&grind, etc. But what if we’re reading this question wrong?

What if the question is not, “why are you applying for THIS JOB,” but “why are YOU applying for this job.”?

Because that’s the heart of the first question recruiters are going to ask. Why you? What about your skillset and experience makes you perfect for this role?

This leads me to a question I don’t think enough candidates are asking when they are evaluating jobs and their own resumes:

Are you applying to the right role for your experience?

If you have the exact title and have performed the listed duties and responsibilities before, then perfect – you’ve answered this question, no bs required.

If you haven’t, then you need to bridge the gap. Why this role, why now? If you can easily see the similarities between your past role and this job, are you making those similarities clear to someone who doesn’t know you?

One of the most common points of feedback I have on my resume reviews for subscribers is that the job you are targeting doesn’t match your experience – at least from the way it’s conveyed on the resume.

This is something a cover letter can help explain, if they give you an opportunity to include one, but it’s also just a matter of understanding what roles exist and how you may already be qualified for one that you haven’t yet considered.

Finding the right jobs for YOU

You’re interested in Customer Success because you want to work with customers, you like creative problem solving, and you are naturally gifted at relationship building and empathy. Maybe you’re here because you want to work remotely without compromise. Whatever the reason, as long as your job search is primarily about getting more money or better opportunities, you need to use every tool at your disposal.

Apply for jobs in your existing industry. If you work in clinical healthcare, apply to health tech companies. If you’re a CSM at a B2B Big Data company, apply to other B2B Big Data companies.

Apply for roles that are a step or a lateral move away from your desired role and work towards an internal promotion. If you don’t have enough experience to be a CSM at a company, look to less-experience-required Support roles or Sales roles, where high performers can be promoted quickly.

Translate previous job titles and responsibilities to better match your desired role. If you were called an ‘Account Manager’, and you’re applying for “Customer Success Manager,” as long as your duties were similar, change it to ‘Customer Success Manager’ on your resume.

Look for opportunities to use your unique skills, like a second language, certification or software expertise.

Sometimes SaaS and tech experience is valued more highly than the skills needed to do the job, so getting in the door can be extremely valuable, and quickly open up future doors.

Don’t make it harder on yourself trying to to apply for a job your resume can’t properly get you.

How are you tying your previous experience to the current job?

I wrote a bit about keyword matching in Part 1 because I think it is essential. You need to understand what keywords the recruiter is searching for and include them in your resume. Recruiters don’t know you; they don’t see the connection between your previous work and this job unless you clearly spell it out for them.

How to keyword match your resume to the job description:

Generally, the job description gives you all the keywords you need, and in priority order. You can:

• Manually write down the relevant keywords as you’re reviewing the job description;

• Put the job description into ChatGPT and ask it to pull out the relevant keywords;

• Use a tool like Jobscan to automatically scan the job description and your resume and tell you what is missing — and then add keywords automatically.

This means that yes, you should be editing your resume before submitting it, nearly every time. Taking the time to personalize your resume to the job is absolutely worth it if you want to get to an interview, and it is way better to spend your time personalizing 1 resume and cover letter a day than spamming 25 of the same generic resumes each day.

If you haven’t been doing this and you’re wondering why you’re not getting calls – this may be the reason.

Is your resume scannable?

We know that recruiters are not reading resumes thoroughly — they are scanning them and looking for specific green or red flags, to make quick Y/N decisions.

Understand their goal: they want to hand off a resume to the hiring manager, and have the hiring manager say “yes, they are perfect.”

Resume must-haves for recruiters:

Easy to read format

Add a summary at the top, then work experience, education, and skills. List your work experience from most recent to oldest, put your job titles above the company name and the dates on the right hand side, like this:

Numbers

Recruiters will scan your resume and expect to see some kind of quantitative accomplishment. You don’t want to put anything you can’t explain in an interview, but I do think that the inclusion of numbers is valuable in and of itself — regardless of what those numbers mean. Try to find a way to quantify some achievements and impact.

The Role Title

This is such an easy win all-around: put the title from the job description in your resume. If you are applying for a functionally similar role but your title was different, change it on your resume to match the title from the job description.

If you haven’t done this role before, include the job title in your summary and at the top, below your name.

Work Experience

The first bullet under a job should be a 1000 ft view of your achievements and responsibilities, and it should match the language of the job description.

Subsequent bullets should emphasize responsibilities found in the job description — proof that you have done what they are asking for before, or something functionally similar, and what results you’ve achieved.

Summary

The summary is your perfect opportunity to appeal to the human reading your resume. Use the summary as an opportunity to answer the question: Why you?

What do you bring to this role? What have you accomplished and what kind of role are you seeking? Keep it short, and don’t be afraid to really sell yourself.

When your resume is done, it’s not done

I said it above but it’s worth repeating: you must tailor your resume to the role you’re applying for — it is the only way to get traction with a cold resume in this competitive job market.

If you're applying for largely similar roles at largely similar companies, you won’t have much work to do each time, but it’s still worth scanning the job description and your resume for opportunities, and adjusting your summary where necessary.

If you’re applying for a couple of different style roles, then you’ll want a resume for each type of role you are pursuing, making the tailoring process easier as time goes on.

And if you’re really interested in saving time, you can use Jobscan.co to automatically search your resume and the job description, and get recommendations, and automatically add what’s missing.

New This Week:

Tuesday’s Job Drop

Coming Up:

Friday - New Job Drop — all the best remote Customer Success jobs I can find!