One day we were using our brains and the next AI crept in the back door, effectively shutting the door on our human creativity. It answers emails, writes reports; it even drafts resumes. But before you let a machine tell the story of your career, think on this…
It’s not you, and that becomes obvious.
AI is a pattern machine. It stitches together sentences from millions of samples, which often makes the output sound professional, but also transparently generic. In my pledge for honesty when asked for constructive criticism in assessing clients’ resumes, I often find myself saying that their skills, for instance, look like they were copied straight from the internet. A list of short phrases that mean nothing. We’ll go more into that in a later blog.
Overuse of yawn inducing buzz words.
AI will normally produce a resume with boring old phrases like “dynamic team player” and “results-driven professional”, which will leave the reader falling asleep on their desk. Real resume writers show WHY you are a dynamic team player, and WHAT you have achieved.
The real you, warts and everything.
Machines don’t recognise or care why there are gaps in your resume. They are not human and don’t care if you expanded your horizons by travelling the world for a year, or working for Save the Children in Africa. They don’t know what amazing transferable skills you acquired as a mum. They don’t know what to say if you spent a year in prison because you did something really silly you regret, or suffered anxiety for six months that kept you from functioning properly. AI doesn’t see that managing a team in a retail clothes store, you developed the same leadership capability and skills as you would supervising a construction crew.
The dangers of writing resumes using AI…
The Applicant Tracking System (commonly known as ATS), used by many employers these days, particularly in companies and larger organisations, government etc., basically doesn’t give a monkeys who put your resume together, BUT…
A resume writer knows what the ATS cannot read and crafts your resume accordingly. Believe it or not, plain Jane is the key to not putting ATS into a spin.
A resume writer knows the words needed to be included in the resume to pass through the ATS system.
A resume writer ensures all the criteria listed by the employer are covered.
ALSO…
The keywords included might rank you higher in ATS’s ‘eyes’ but when the recruiter reads your resume after that first scan, it’s just a bland, generic, non-seasoned bowl of potato soup.
Recruiters are trained to recognise generic templates or AI manufactured pages of keywords with no substance or human element, no hint of the personality behind the writing.
Your web of AI created template with fancy layouts might look visually attractive, but they actually confuse ATS.
Your resume is your story.
If your story is interesting and engaging, the recruiter will read it. If it is full of stock standard, finger down the throat, boring cliches. It will go straight in the rubbish bin. I put a paper bag over my head if I read “Honest, punctual and reliable”. That is better off on a gravestone. That’s why you pick a writer to tell your story. A writer weaves your experiences and skills, highlighting the particular things sought by the recruiters, to present you as the right fit for the role you’re targeting.
One size does not fit all…
That does not work when choosing a hat, and it definitely does not work for either resumes or cover letters these days. It’s a whole new ball game in the 2020s. So if my clients ask me to provide an all round resume that they can use for three different types of work, I say no. Why? Because I know it won’t work. Yes, I can focus a resume on administration, or retail, or teaching, or construction, a specific trade or machinery operation, but not on a combination of any of the above. Either decide which direction you want to take before you start constructing your resume, or do two or three different versions. More on that in my next blog.
One size does not fit all…
So what’s the plan? You don’t really know what you want to do next? Maybe you’re returning to work after doing an amazing job as a mum for several years. Or maybe your current vocational path has lost its appeal. You might have several ideas, but they are in quite different directions.
In that case, I suggest waiting until something comes up that appeals to you, and gear your resume to that. Once the resume is put together for that job, if something else comes up that is completely different in nature, we adjust the first resume accordingly, so you have two different resumes. I have written up to four different versions for clients in the past.
Looks aren’t everything…
Recently, a young client sent a very pretty resume to me asking for a revamp. I explained the dangers of over-flowery design and columns and everything that is no longer considered acceptable in a resume. I took away all the flowers and patterns and wrote a resume that concentrated on skills and experience rather than artistry. A resume that works in the 21st Century. She didn’t like it, and she didn’t pay me. Fortunately, 99% of my customers appreciate that 40 years’ experience counts.
I should have been a Forensic Investigator
Why? Because I love extracting information from people, and as a journalist I have interviewed hundreds of people for their story, and undertaken a huge amount of research. It’s what I love about my job, making people see how amazing they are, by extracting their achievements, their passions and their aspirations. This is what makes a resume real, human and appealing. In the old days, a resume was called a curriculum vitae, which literally translated means ‘course of life’. You have so very many talents you don’t even think of as talents until a professional points them out to you. That is MY passion.
If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys…
So often, I am presented with resumes that have been created by people who have replied to online requests for resumes made on community Facebook pages.
People post “Suggestions for a good resume writer?”
Replies range from “I can do it for you. $25” to “Use AI” or suggestions to use online resources that have resulted in many clients being bled of hundreds of dollars for a resume I am asked to completely redo. Not surprisingly.
You get what you pay for. If I take a lot more care over your resume, it is because I really want you to get to interview. I really care whether you get the job.