This Is The Reason Your Resume Is Getting Ignored

You still haven’t heard back.

No, I’m not talking about a returned text from a beau. I’m speaking of the employer you sent your resume to, and have largely been ignored by. It stings when you put yourself out there for an opportunity to no avail. No matter how old you get, rejection can feel incredibly isolating. But you’re not alone.

Just 10% to 20% is considered average and 20% to 30% is a decent application-to-interview ratio according to an analysis from resume review platform Zibjob. This is unsurprising since every single job offer carries 250 applications per listing on average. Although these rates are considered normal, they are still minuscule and can leave many applicants feeling dejected during the job seeking process.

In fact, 76% of job seekers say not hearing back after submitting a job application trumps the frustration of not hearing back after a first date according to 2024 survey findings from HiringThing.

With that, there are some overlooked reasons that your resume isn’t getting the attention it deserves. Here’s what we mean.

It’s obvious ChatGPT wrote it

Although the advancement of AI is aggressively making the completion of most admin tasks easier, some things still need a human touch, particularly ones that affect your livelihood.

Although ChatGPT may be a good place to start, it’s critically important to edit your resume in your voice and personalize it to showcase your skills in a way that will help convince the prospective employer that you’re a fit for the role. Although the generative AI tool is useful, it doesn’t always convey the aforementioned.

“What ChatGPT rendered for me was a lightly personalized (partially completed; partially incorrect) resume template,” Robb Wilson of the Harvard Business Review wrote. “It organized the ideas I fed into the software and created a decent first draft. Beyond that, I had to look deeper at each section of the draft to edit the information that ChatGPT had generated for me.”

Just like we, as readers, can tell when an awkwardly phrased social media caption or article is written by ChatGPT, so can recruiters with your resume.

You’re including information no one cares about

A resume is a calling card for your professional skills, and should clearly showcase what you’ve done and plan to do for the role. Most HR experts suggest keeping it to one page, so it’s important to relegate only the most important details on your resume. Remember to thoroughly review the job description and use key words in your resume to help trigger certain application filtering softwares. Also, lay out your previous experiences in reverse chronological order and include only the most pertinent details.

Any other details like a headshot, your home address, a summary at the top of the top of the resume or an objective are outdated aspects that will take precious real estate on the resume, and turn off anyone who’s reviewing it.

You’re not bragging on yourself enough

Your resume is your time to shine. It’s an amalgamation of all the most important and relevant job experiences you’ve had. It’s a vehicle for professional self-advocacy. Basically, you should feel comfortable bragging on yourself. As simple as it may sound, it’s tough to do if you’re not used to it, but get comfortable, quickly.

Here’s how to do it.

Include success metrics as opposed to simply just naming the responsibilities you carried out in a role.

Delivered a 47% increase in social engagement and exceeded a spearheaded an influencer campaign that garnered a 40% conversion rate.

Pointing out that you led a project that garnered a positive result for the company is a great way to illustrate your skillset.