I have had conversations with many job seekers over the last couple of years and the refrain is eerily similar: “I’ve applied to so (sometimes hundreds) many jobs for which I am infinitely qualified, but I don’t even make it to the first round.” This inevitably leads to the conversation that it is ‘who you know that matters vs what you know’; a belief that is deeply rooted. Underpinning this belief are the uncountable number of formal and informal networking programs that exist. However, if that is truly the state of the world, then why do we bother with job postings? Is it just so that organizations can show compliance or to let networks know that there is a role available? Or is it because there is a legitimate chance that an ‘unknown’ candidate could be successful?
So, there must be something going on such that the very senior (had a Chief Technology Officer vent about not getting past the gate) to the most junior (new post-secondary graduates) are having a dickens of a time getting to the first interview when applying online. One of the reasons are applicant tracking systems (ATS) about which I have written and will do so more in the future. The ATS(s) allow organizations to be more efficient by ranking resumes with higher keyword matches. These systems certainly serve a purpose because there are many job seekers who apply to every role from cook to chief chemical engineer because it’s easy to do at a click of a button.
I am not talking about the ‘junk mail of resumes’; I am talking about the missing middle – the ones that fall below the cut-off mark of 80% or 90% but who are well above the 65% or 70%. Recruitment is often perceived as a linear process—job posting, screening, interviewing, and hiring. However, this fragmented perspective fails to recognize the complexities and interdependencies of modern hiring. We need to view recruitment as a system—a dynamic, interconnected network of processes, technologies, human stakeholders, and outcomes.
One of the challenges of job postings is that they are too long and unrealistic – a laundry list of responsibilities and competencies required that make it nearly impossible for candidates to demonstrate they possess all of that in a cover-letter and two-page resume. This job posting is then used by the ATS to assess the important keywords. I have seen examples where to pass the ATS set at 80%, the resume and cover letter must contain 30 – 50 exact keywords.
Also, organizations are using AI tools to create job descriptions and postings, thereby increasing efficiency, standardization and compliance in getting the posting out to the labour market. The tricky piece is the interrelationship between applicant tracking systems, job postings, internal recruiters and hiring managers who are part of the system.
There are several things that organizations could do to ensure a greater variety of resumes are ranked well to uncover the missing middle and be more human:
- Shorter role descriptions for postings – limit the number of key competencies and technical skills required to get past the first bar
- Ensure alignment between what the hiring manager views as important, the verbiage in the job posting (what is actually a ‘must have’) AND the keywords or the ATS algorithm which will rank the resumes
- Enable the algorithm to search for fewer keywords and/or root of words not requiring that the exact word must be in the resume – that means that if “designing a strategy” is important, then the ATS should accept ‘creating strategies”, “strategic design of”, “strategy design” etc. ATS should be programmed to be able to do semantic searching or concept-based searching rather than only be able to match keywords
There are many roles (whether by level of area of specialization) where human intervention likely needs to happen much earlier, requiring greater oversight of the job description and ATS programming as well as increased communication between the recruiter and hiring manager.