Quora Question: Why are you applying for jobs but not getting interviews? - Shortened for space.

My Response. Side note: Someone was obviously attempting to sell their services on Quora (which is restricted), and decided to point their question to me. I decided to expound on the answer anyway. 

​There could be several reasons why someone may be applying for positions but not getting interviews. The CV can absolutely be a problem in several ways. Including the following may increase the likelihood that the CV will get past Applicant Tracking Systems to the initial screening interview.

1. Does the CV include REQUIRED criteria for the position? If it does not, it will be rejected. These criteria may include educational requirements, years of experience, or location.
2. Does the CV include relevant terms, skills, experience, and education that demonstrate your expertise within the position and/or industry?
3. Is the CV formatted for easy accessibility to the core information within the document?

Achieving a hiring manager interview, the CV must demonstrate more of the following:

1. Demonstrate your ability to solve one of the industry’s or target position’s key problem. (For example: Problem: low customer retention - Solution - A restaurant server who was able to double customer retention through their innovative “VIP customer server method).”
2. Create accomplishment statements that shares (A) What you did. (B) How you did it. (C) The result using metrics. (Example” Tripled productivity by streamlining workflows and eliminating redundancies resulting in $40M in annual widget cost savings).”
3. Include statements and accomplishments that demonstrate your innovation and “future-focused” approach. This involves company or industry research. Example: The hospital you are applying to is implementing a new hospital management system. You led a similar project at your last position but ran into an unexpected problem with triplicate records. You may share how you solved that problem through using an AI tool.

I’ll stop here. Simply put, there is a human behind every hire. Make sure you are writing for that person. The hiring manager wants their problem solved (that’s why the position is open) - AND wants to know that are the best candidate AND that you know what you are talking about. ​
The key is to do the work (research) required and use the available tools (AI or professional writers) to create a CV that answers the questions your target reader (hiring managers) will be interested in.

Last note: If you use AI to write your CV, make sure you do the work to make sure your authenticity shows. You are the one who will show up at the interview. Your CV and your physical interview should match.

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Author

About your career coach: 
Nanette Kirk is the President and CEO of NetKi Enterprises, LLC. We help clients navigate their career journey, through career coaching and consulting. Thank you for reading this blog post. Feel free to reach out if you have any leadership or career challenges, I can help you explore and resolve. You can click on the button below to schedule a discovery call.