How Job Applicants Try to Hack Résumé-Reading Software

Last year, Shirin Nilizadeh got a call from a friend who had been worn down looking for a job. One person, applying for an entry-level job at Google, told me they listed their Facebook page on their résumé because they believed Google’s applicant tracking systems rewarded mentions of other large tech companies. Schweber says software can filter out as many as 75 percent of applicants who don’t meet the job criteria, and can help recruiters choose the small number of candidates to advance to the next level. Last fall, the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission launched an initiative to examine the role of artificial intelligence in hiring, citing concerns that new technologies presented a “a high-tech pathway to discrimination.” Around the same time, Fuller published a report suggesting that applicant tracking systems routinely exclude candidates with irregularities on their résumés: a gap in employment, for example, or relevant skills that didn’t quite match the recruiter’s keywords. “It's more important to focus on a human looking at your résumé rather than clever tricks, like trying to stuff keywords in there.” Nate Smith, CEO, Lever To help workers get around these algorithmic gatekeepers, another group of companies offer to help job seekers optimize their résumés.