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The landscape of employment for job-seekers has changed dramatically since the beginning of the pandemic in Alberta. As of May 2020, the Alberta Government reports an unemployment rate of 15.5%. Combine that with experienced employees furloughed from various sectors, new graduates and those seeking a new career direction may have a steeper hill to climb than before. We continue to discover what is the new normal for Alberta post-pandemic, we revisit the topic of how to put your best foot forward when optimizing your resume for your job hunt.

Tundra Technical Solutions is a global recruitment agency headquartered in Toronto, Ontario. Since 2004, Tundra has grown quickly, today operating offices across North America, Europe and Asia. They work with top global partners actively seeking the best talent in multiple sectors such as finance, insurance, healthcare, technology, retail, energy, utilities, construction, mining, telecommunications, transportation and government to name a few. 

Ever considered utilizing the skills a recruitment agency may have to offer? It may be the right time considering the volume of applicants in the hundreds on certain job postings, as shown in the image below. We spoke with Christina Esposito, Marketing and Communications Lead and Internal Recruiter for Tundra Technical Solutions on ways to optimize your resume for recruiters in the new normal.

(Source: LinkedIn Job Search)

Should your resume be written chronologically or functionally?

The key difference here is whether or not your work experience should be written as a timeline of your previous positions or should it be laid out in the form of what experience you feel is best suited for the position you are applying for. From a recruiters perspective, Christina mentions:

“We like to see a reverse chronological order of previous work experience. We recommend placing all of your technical skills right at the top of your resume, and then go into your most recent experience.”

Should you tailor your resume for the specific job you are applying for?

Say you are actively applying to open positions, tailoring your resume can be a time consuming task if your objective is to apply to the first 10-20 open positions you find. To that point, applying to everything you see can be detrimental to your efforts when utilizing a recruiter. Keep in mind, there is a human processing your candidate profile, and their efforts are to find the best talent for their employers. Christina offers a recommendation that can mitigate time for both the job seeker and recruiter:

“ we absolutely want to see someone tailoring their resume that matches the job description. A good tip for someone who might not want to go through a whole overhaul, is to first make sure that the job you’re applying to is relevant to your experience, recruiters can see if you’re applying to the first jobs that pop up for example. It becomes clear they haven’t really looked into the position they’re applying for. So, a lot of care and detail should go into those applications if you want to have the greatest success. Ultimately you want to make sure that the job description lines up with your skills…” 

What is the best resume format that can be read autonomously through recruitment software?

As mentioned above, some positions can receive hundreds of applications. If you haven’t been made aware by now, recruiters utilise software called an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) or what is referred to as resume parsing, which allows the hundreds of resumes to be read and processed, thus creating a candidate profile highlighting the most relevant information to send to an employer. Say you spent endless hours on the most aesthetically pleasing resume to give that ‘wow’ factor, that may have been a solid practice in the past, but ATS systems have difficulty processing these resume formats, thus your candidate profiles could be lacking important information.

“I would recommend against a PDF format. The reason being is that Microsoft Word documents are the most legible and easiest to parse with. The way the ATS works is, someone sends in the application, the ATS picks those keywords from their resume and matches them to the actual job description. Inserting images or a lot of text can make it difficult for recruiters to look up your profile in the future.”

What should NOT be included on your resume?

Some of these you may already know, but let’s be clear, having a resume with only relevant information is your best chance of success. Working as a retail store manager I had received countless resumes from individuals seeking employment. During that time, I had encountered some of the most outrageous and creative resumes from all walks of life. By no means am I a recruitment specialist, but sticking to the basics was a winner for my new hires during that time. Christina offers the perspective of a recruiter for what not to put on your resume:

“Jumping right into things like objectives or hobbies is fine, but we would recommend against it because the longer you make your resume, you can decrease the chances of someone reading the full document. Best practice is to always keep your resume one to two pages with only relevant information. For industry veterans that have lengthy work history, you should only list the most recent and relevant experience.” 

Should you include links to your social media?

Social media plays a significant role in the recruitment process for both agencies and hiring managers. LinkedIn has become a major part of what we call this ‘new normal’, with more than 20 million companies listed on the site and 14 million open jobs, it’s no surprise that over 75% of people who recently changed jobs used LinkedIn to inform their career decision. When it comes to social media, Christina offers her recommendations:

“90% of the time, recruiters are looking at your LinkedIn or Twitter. We want to make sure we get a holistic view of the applicant. 40% of our hires last year were candidates we sourced directly from LinkedIn. We have situations where we have candidates that look great on paper, but after we do some investigating. He/she doesn’t actually prove to be the person he/she was saying on paper. It’s a point of validation and puts a face to a name. My recommendation would be to keep your social media profiles clean, descriptive and showcase your accomplishments, especially if you have a public profile.”

This information should offer you some insight into how the employment landscape is changing and what best practices to implement for your job hunt. Who wouldn’t want to save time and effort on what can be an arduous task?

If you would like to learn more about Tundra Technical Solutions, speak to one of their experienced recruiters or to view their available positions in Alberta, check out their website here or message them on their Facebook below.

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