Found out 70% of job listings never get seen by real people

I was messing around on some career stats site last night, just bored after dinner, and I stumbled on this crazy fact. Apparently most companies use automated screening tools that reject applications before a human ever lays eyes on them. Like 70% of job posts get filtered out by keyword matching software or some algorithm. I always thought if you applied to enough places someone would eventually read your resume. That is totally not how it works apparently. It made me rethink my whole approach to applying. I spent two hours rewriting my resume to match specific job descriptions after that. Has anyone else changed how they apply after learning about this?

2 comments

2 Comments

riley_coleman81mo ago

Spent two hours rewriting mine too, only to realize the job I applied for probably got filtered out by a bot named "Rejection Bot 3000" or something. Guess my resume's just not popular enough for the algorithm to swipe right on.

holly_price1mo ago

Honestly I used to be one of those people who thought if you just applied enough times someone would eventually notice. But after reading about this I totally flipped my view. Like I used to send out the same generic resume to everything and wonder why I never heard back. Now I literally copy and paste key terms from the job description into my skills section. It feels weird gaming the system but apparently that's the only way to get past the robot gatekeepers. Ngl it's kind of depressing that your whole career can hinge on matching the right buzzwords.