Last week, I decided to conduct my own experiment. I applied to various functions including a mix of front office, back office and other support functions. I applied on Friday night and the employer uses the Taleo system. Yesterday morning, I received 3 rejection letters, 1 for a trading position and 2 for HR related roles; the other 20 applications I submitted haven’t generated any response yet. So obviously, Taleo scans for certan keywords when separating candidates in the call/do not call pools. Is it simply a matter of regurgitating the job description in your resume, or are there other tactics that can be used? Judging by the response time, I’m pretty sure my application didn’t even reach anyone’s desk.
I don’t think I ever got a single resume through Taleo when I was job searching. I was applying mostly for real estate jobs and my resume was basically a deal sheet. Any human who actually read it generally called me for at least a phone interview.
Instead of having an actual resume relevant to investment management, try saying crap like “goal-oriented” and “team player” and see how the robots respond.
If a company can’t be bothered to have a human do a quick pass/fail on someone’s resume for literally 6 seconds, they don’t deserve me.
Terrible attitude.
Not really, but good luck sending out another 100 applications.
Why bother with some huge process that screens people based on what some HR girl thinks are appropriate keywords? I have literally never spoken to an HR girl that had an ounce of knowledge about the position they were hiring.
Cold call someone in the department, tell them in 2 minutes why you’re interested in the position and ask them if they’d mind forwarding your resume on to the decision maker.
Take the same key words in the job posting an regurgitate them on your resume…
If you see: statistics, MBS, ERISA, and MBA
Make sure all those show up somewhere on your resume… tailor it after you read the job posting.