So I just had a convo with a friend
For starters, throw away your Resume as you know it. Nobody cares where you studied, how many years of experience you have, or all the personnel skills you developed. Simply put, those are the bare minimum.
The Hiring Funnel
Hiring is done in a multi-phase funnel.
Phase 1 — Matching Filter
So what are they matching? Exactly what the job asks for. Degree, Years of Experience, skill set. That's non-negotiable — you have to meet those minimum requirements, else your application never even gets to a reviewer.
Phase 2 — Soft Match
This is where they use AI. It essentially takes the job posting and directly runs it against your CV, turning it into a scorecard. If you're not in the top 80%, consider yourself filtered out.
Phase 3 — Say Hi to a Human
This is the first time your resume ever reaches a human, but don't think they're checking your CV. They're just asking the AI "what makes this person special?"
Here's where you should pay attention.
The AI gives the reviewer your life in a single paragraph. That's why overfilling your CV is pointless — the AI won't tell them "Wow, this person is incredible!" They ask it "how good of a fit are they for this role", taking into account the company's industry. If they sell apples, make sure your CV says you sold apples, or pears — not cars or computers.
A broad skillset doesn't set you apart. We all like to think a jack-of-all-trades makes us exceptional, but they're not hiring exceptional — they're hiring exceptionally well suited for a very specific niche role.
Think of it like Cinderella's slipper. If you're trying to be too broad, you're a poor fit — you will step on toes, say bye-bye to getting hired. If your CV isn't tailored to the job's description, you underfit and you end up being seen as "needs work". Surprisingly, you're more likely to get hired as "needs work" than someone who'd step on toes — because teaching skills is easier than teaching you to restrain yourself from stepping on toes. Someone who "needs work" isn't a bad fit, they have room to grow. But you'll only get the job if they're cutting budget or can't find their Cinderella and you're the closest they can get to a perfect fit.
Short-Listed — Now You Shine
Congratulations! They now know you are qualified (Phase 1), you're capable (Phase 2) and you'd be a decent fit (Phase 3). Your CV is officially going to get read.
This is where the top 10 candidates' CVs are cross-examined by a team, who determine if you can actually add value, or if you're just a seat filler. This is where they look at:
- Your past experience
- The systems you worked on
- The niche industries you dealt with
- The hobbies you commit to
- Open source projects
- Released products
They aren't looking for the standard employee anymore — this is where they want YOU. And YOU need to stand out. Hackathons, Dev.to series, book publishing — these are what make you you and make you exceptional for some job!
But if you want to be exceptional for THIS job, you need to tailor your CV to it. Else you bloat their time with irrelevant stuff. Be concise and be relevant.
How to Prepare — The Two Scratch Pads
Here's part 2 of pay-attention and how you should prepare for job searching.
Scratch Pad 1 — Systems You've Worked On
Put all the systems you worked on in the past. Even if it seems unrelated, you never know. I landed my job because I did tech support on Sage Pastel — they happen to be writing an ERP system that interfaces with Sage Evolution. That's experience no degree can make up for. Don't think it's irrelevant — write it down. These are your soft skills that give you an edge.
Scratch Pad 2 — Blocks of Text
This is your fancy talk for what you did, why you did it, and how you did it — with tags for the skills involved (C#, SQL, etc.). This is what they'll actually read. This is your niche and will be the definitive reason why they hire you.
The AI Workflow
Now here's the fun part.
Step 1 — To make sure you get to Phase 3, give your AI access to:
- Scratch Pad 1
- Scratch Pad 2
- Your default template CV (basic education and employment history — no blocks of text, no skills, nothing else)
Now that your AI has sufficient content, feed it the job posting and ask it to compile your CV from your skills and blocks of text to match this job. That way whichever skills are required get cherry-picked, along with the blocks of text relevant to it. When they read your CV, it's concise, well-structured, in your own words, and tailored to the job.
Step 2 — Red-hatting yourself. Feed a new chat the job posting and your compiled CV, then ask:
- "Is this person qualified?" (Phase 1)
- "How well suited are they for the job?" (Phase 2)
- "Why are they an exceptional fit for the job?" (Phase 3)
- "If you could score this applicant out of 100, how well suited are they?" (Interview)
If you get 90% or higher on your final score, and reading Phase 3's response makes you really feel "wow, this person would add value" — then you've done all you can to get this far. (Correct me if I'm wrong.)
Disclaimer
Keep in mind, these are my findings from personal job seeking (unsuccessfully, except for the 1 time I mentioned Pastel) and the experience I garnered from my shelved project, TUB (Talent by UnitBuilds), which involved more than a month's process of researching HR policies, hiring conditions, and what makes the system tick.
PLEASE, if you have anything to add — something that worked for you, something you'd adjust, anything that can help people get hired — mention it in the comments. I'll add it to the post. This is meant as a functional post, because at some point all of us will be searching for a job and if it can even help a single person land a job, then it's worth all the effort.
As a community, we watch each other's backs and we help where we can. There's no competition here, only strangers over the internet who have nothing but encouragement and well wishes for each other.
Top comments (1)
@xulingfeng I really hope this helps my friend. I'll do my best to find time to make the app for it, to make it easier. In the meantime, get your scratchpads ready!