What Are The Best Ways to Bypass the ATS and Get to the Hiring Manager? | JobSearchTV.com
People always tell you to network to the hiring manager but rarely suggest how to do it.. If you know my philosophy, you know that this person is asking the right question. After all, it’s called the black hole for reason. There are two ways to do it– one is easier than the other.
Making Your Resume ATS Likeable
Someone asked the question, what are the best ways to bypass the applicant tracking system and get to the hiring manager? Smart question. Because if you know my philosophy, you know, you never, ever apply for a job through an applicant tracking system. The idea is to avoid it like the plague. Why? There’s a reason it’s called the black hole. You’re sending it into an abyss. It’s using algorithms to identify, number one, specific keywords into a data dictionary and from there, decide whether or not your background fits. And the key words have to be at a certain point place in the resume–they can’t be too far down in the resume because it assumes it’s older information. So there’s a lot that you want to avoid with an applicant tracking system. What are the best ways? Here are two.
Number one is you actually know someone who works for the firm, and can walk your resume over to the hiring manager. And it’s really knows you, not just you found someone on LinkedIn who’s willing to do it, because they’re gonna get an employee referral bonus. No, it’s a real relationship with someone who can walk it over to the hiring manager, who knows the hiring manager. That’s what makes it more difficult, and is able to provide a testimonial for you.
The second way involves work on your part, which involves digging out the hiring manager. How do you do that? Well, you have a job description that has keywords to it, right? It’s in the requirements area. It defines the business area, what the work is going to be, a whole host of things. Then from there, you go to LinkedIn, and you do a search for people who have that kind of a background who work at the firm.
From there, you run into a different problem, because most of you don’t have a large network. So you then have to go to Google and do much the same thing– identifying people who work at that firm, who have these particular terms associated with their LinkedIn profile because remember, if you use Google, you’re able to get around the limits that LinkedIn puts for who you can see. You can see third level connections to some degree. So you’re able to get to more people that way. You can also join large groups that relate to this field, so that it also expands your reach. In this way, you can start digging to identify the hiring manager, or people in the group who might be able to point you to the hiring manager or former employees who can introduce you to the hiring manager or tell you who the hiring manager is.
Your right to short circuit the applicant tracking system where you can. You’re always better off getting to the manager directly. It’s not always easy, but the effort is well worth it.
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ABOUT JEFF ALTMAN, THE BIG GAME HUNTER
Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter is a coach who worked as a recruiter for what seems like one hundred years. His work involves career coaching, as well as executive job search coaching, job coaching, and interview coaching. He is the host of “No BS Job Search Advice Radio,” the #1 podcast in iTunes for job search with over 2300 episodes.
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