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How to Get Your Resume Past an Algorithm

Beat the system to receive a call back when you apply for a job online

Have you ever applied for a job online only to never hear back? Most like it’s because an automated system filters through resumes, throwing out 75 percent of applications before a human being ever sees them. However, there are ways to pass the software screening and increase your likelihood of earning that in-person interview. Watch now to discover how!

Have you ever applied for a job online – and never heard back? You are so not alone.

Most companies use automated systems to filter and sort job-applicants resumés – like yours. These algorithms throw out almost 75 percent of the resumés – before a human ever sees them.

Don’t worry though, we got you.

Here are three tips to beat the system:

Use Strategic Keywords

In your experience descriptions, use the same key words mentioned in the job posting. If the employer requires “coordinating experience,” properly use the keyword “coordinate.” The software matches key phrases and words from your resumé to the qualifications.

Don’t Use Fancy Formatting

Make it an easy-to-read Word or .PDF document. Automated systems will throw out any other file types and anything with fancy artwork on it.

Don’t Make Any Spelling Mistakes 

The software terminates resumés it can’t understand. Misspelled words create big problems for the system. Spellcheck your resumé. Then spellcheck it 5 more times.

One more thing – network!

Reach out to friends, or friends-of-friends, to bypass the system entirely. Having a personal voucher is the best way to bump up your resumé and get it in front of a human.

Now you got this! Go get ‘em, tiger!

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Dana Beth Ardi

Executive Committee

Dana Beth Ardi, PhD, Executive Committee, is a thought leader and expert in the fields of executive search, talent management, organizational design, assessment, leadership and coaching. As an innovator in the human capital movement, Ardi creates enhanced value in companies by matching the most sought after talent with the best opportunities. Ardi coaches boards and investors on the art and science of building high caliber management teams. She provides them with the necessary skills to seek out and attract top-level management, to design the ideal organizational architectures and to deploy people against strategy. Ardi unearths the way a business works and the most effective way for people to work in them.

Ardi is an experienced business executive and senior consultant who leverages business organizational transformation through talent strategies. She uses her knowledge and experience to develop talent strategies to enhance revenue and profit contributions. She has a deep expertise in change management and organizational effectiveness and has designed and built high performance cultures. Ardi has significant experience in mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, IPO’s and turnarounds.

Ardi is an expert on the multi-generational workforce. She understands the four intersecting generations of workers coming together in contemporary companies, each with their own mindsets, leadership and communications styles, values and motivations. Ardi is sought after to assist companies manage and thrive by bringing the generations together. Her book, Fall of the Alphas: How Beta Leaders Win Through Connection, Collaboration and Influence, will be published by St. Martin’s Press. The book reflects Ardi’s deep expertise in understanding organizations and our changing society. It focuses on building a winning culture, how companies must grow and evolve, and how talent influences and shapes communities of work. This is what she has coined “Corporate Anthropology.” It is a playbook on how modern companies must meet challenges – culturally, globally, digitally, across genders and generations.

Ardi is currently the Managing Director and Founder of Corporate Anthropology Advisors, LLC, a consulting company that provides human capital advisory and innovative solutions to companies building value through people. Corporate Anthropology works with organizations, their cultures, the way they grow and develop, and the people who are responsible for forming their communities of work.

Prior to her position at Corporate Anthropology Advisors, Ardi served as a Partner/Managing Director at the private equity firms CCMP Capital and JPMorgan Partners. She was a partner at Flatiron Partners, a venture capital firm working with early state companies where she pioneered the human capital role within an investment portfolio.

Ardi holds a BS from the State University of New York at Buffalo as well as a Masters degree and PhD from Boston College. She started her career as professor at the Graduate Center at Fordham University in New York.