For as long as people have had jobs, there have been job titles, Baker, Candlestick Maker, Journeyman Electrician, CNC Operator. Your title might have changed or evolved, but your job title was your job title. That is not exactly the case anymore.
In recent times, specifically, people have more and more job titles added to their resumes, as the gig economy continues to increase. From “Rideshare Driver” to “Grocery Shopper” or a “Task Bunny” to help assemble Ikea furniture and still leaving 3 important looking screws left over.
The overall increased of new gig / independent jobs has given rise to new challenges when working with resumes. Resumes parsed or input automatically into a system will list the current or most recent job title for the candidate. Some systems will even just use the job at the top of the section (which could be in reverse order depending on how the candidate laid out their resume).
Which could mean, that a Journeyman Electrician with 25 years of experience could instead be listed in the ATS or CTS as an uber driver because for the past 3 months he wanted to pick up some extra cash to cover the new pool being put-in, in his backyard.
MISSED CONNECTIONS
There are multiple ways that hiring managers, recruiters, and talent acquisition specialists will search for candidates, they might search for recent job title with X time of experience in a radius of X miles. They might get 100 candidates in their search, some qualified, some not, some information out of date, etc. They take those 100 and narrow down and qualify a bit more, reaching out to inquire about interest and availability. They might come across someone great for the role, but they also could be missing the absolute perfect candidate, all because his profile matches as currently working as a uber driver with 3 months experience.
Personally I think that we are at a point in time where there needs to be some changes to the resume and application format.
There needs to be a differentiation between someone’s Career Experience & Gig Experience. When filling in an application a candidate should be able to list their work not in linear fashion but in parallel, and have it not be lumped together but rather working together.
Recruiting should be quick and efficient, sourcing the best possible candidates using all the tools available, without the chance for missed matches. By segmenting / separating the career from the gig experience, filtering can get that much better.
The candidate tracking system should also segment them. By being able to search Career Experience either removed from or in parallel to Gig Experience, we can get better results and reduce the chances of missing out of the right candidate.
Advice to Candidates: When filling out a resume / application, understand that 99.7% of all jobs go through a system, parsing data to create a profile for you. Formatting is crucial so that the system doesn’t miss things, get confused, etc. Just as important is the hierarchy and timeline of your information. As stated above, you might have 20 years experience as a machinist or CNC operator, but if the job at the top of your experience or your most recent job is read as “Rideshare Driver”, that’s what your current job title will show in your profile. Doesn’t matter if it has been for 3 decades or 3 days. You’ve undoubtedly heard the phrase dress for the job you want not the job you have. Apply that to your resume. Dress it up for the job you want, not the job you have.
Advice to Hiring Managers / Recruiters / Talent Acquisition Specialists: Filtering candidates in your ATS or CTS to find matches is obviously necessary. Stop filtering as a recruiter, and start filtering as a candidate. Do not assume that each profile is perfectly formatted and filled out correctly or in a way that you instinctively go about a search. You are coming at it from a professional mindset, and unless you are searching for a candidate to do the same thing you are, the candidates are novices when it comes to this. Formulate your filtering to find the best candidate for the job, not the candidate with the best profile.
