I recently read a helpful article on how to get your resume past the robo filters that most employers now... er... employ. See, when you submit an electronic resume, or even when you don't, they are filtered by a computer program that looks for certain key words. There are some legitimate reasons for this. we will examine those first.
In the early days of this technology being employed, it was used mostly for technical positions. The filters would look for specific names, acronyms, or programming languages, so as to filter out those who did not have the required proficiency. It then became applied to every type of position at every company, and as such, is now quite detrimental. How can such a powerful tool work against you? Let's see.
We have all been there. Surfing Youtube looking for lolcats or whatever, when you stumble on a video, usually adult, that is somehow in the mix with the "I can haz cheezburger" videos. After the shock wears off you look at the "tags" associated with the video and see that there are many tags for lolcats, etc. Now ask yourself: could not someone add such a list to the end of their resume?
I bounced this off of someone with a bit more computer know how than myself, and he asked why have the "keyword paragraph" at all. You see, you can insert something called a meta-tag to most documents. Like the salmonella virus; it is invisible to the naked eye, and yet the hero of our story. The computer would read these key words, and yet the person calling you for the interview could not see them. This effectively means you could list the entire friggin' dictionary as key word set if you felt like it.
Since the type of person who would embellish, enhance, or jargon-load their resume is likely also good at gaming any variety of rating system; as an employer you are showing a preference for the people who will do the least amount of work, but which looks best on paper.
This will undoubtedly skew payroll in favor of those people, and away from the truly deserving. Or as a co-worker put it: "Numbers are b------t. You want me to make 'em sing, I'll make 'em sing. You want'em to dance, I'll make 'em dance." Sound like the guy you want getting the biggest raise? (For the record, he did exactly that.)
What do you think the rest of us did when we saw that system working? We had no choice. Game the system, or be left behind, bitter about not getting a good raise. That is what the modern American employer is buying with their reliance on filtering technology. This is especially true when you are filtering for management buzzwords, marketing non-words, or any of the other crap you are likely to find being made fun of in the funny papers.
As a side note, some of you no doubt, have noticed that I like to flex my vocabulary from time to time. Honestly it is because it makes me feel like I'm better than you. Kidding. That's not why I'm better than you. My point is that someone who has a big vocabulary, and is not in a field where filters should be used, may choose to employ words that the filter will not be looking for, but which a human would see, recognize, and accept.
In short, corporate America, you are filtering out the people with a bigger vocabulary, (not necessarily indicative of a greater intellect, mind you) in favor of those willing to game your system. Game here being synonymous with cheat. Human Resources is the last place that computers should be used instead of people. Also the most dangerous place to allow this level of laziness.
Enjoy the workforce you have purchased for yourself corporate America.
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Keep it clean and well thought out.