Rock'em Sock'em Job Search Agents
Photo credit: Lorie Shaull, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
As part of my job searching story, I wanted to document my experience with what I'm calling the Rock'em Sock'em Service, which following the tradition of my blog of not naming names, is NOT what it is actually called. The name is irrelevant, however, as I'm more interested in talking a bit about how the computer-versus-computer service works and how one could use some of the tips I learned without paying for the full service.
The Rock'em Sock'em Service is where you pay $90 (that’s the lowest price available) for 3 months of online service where you can put a computer programming system up against the ATS (Applicant Tracking System) and via some amazing tricks of key words, placement, size, color, and length (SERIOUSLY, you would be AMAZED), you can get your resume and cover letter to match the job description up to 90% +. They recommend that you are ready to apply at 70%+ though.
You can use the service for free but it is limited to only 5 service attempts or matches per month. For the $90, you can hit submit & compare your documents as many times as you like for 90 days.
What you do is you retrieve the page where the job is posted. You will need to disclose, if possible, what ATS the job application system is using, i.e. Bamboo, Indeed, etc. because Rock'em Sock'em does know each services' preferences for matching & submissions.
You also submit your resume or curriculum vitae (CV) and possibly also your cover letter.
Then, pow! Rock'em Sock'em pits its computer against the ATS computer and makes a bunch of recommendations that it is up to you, the user, to change in your documents before you actually submit them for the job. They do offer a weak guarantee but I don't remember it being enough to push it.
Given that a job might have thousands of online resumes inputted, even submitting a resume/cover letter combo with a 94% match doesn’t guarantee that you’ll get in the top 6...5...3…(?) resumes that the HR department will pull and forward to the Hiring Manager.
I learned SUCH interesting tricks with that system though. If you think it’s ONLY about keyword matching, you are wrong. Here I learned to change your past job titles. Also, according to the ATS, job histories of 10 years are good, 20 years are dangerous, and 30 years are unheard of.
All this is to say that ageism in job hunting is real and you should conceal your work history if it goes past 20 years and definitely leave OUT your graduation dates...those are the biggest giveaway of age if discrimination is going to happen.
With the service, you can get tips about placement of certain keywords (like a strong keyword should show up in a title AND a description) and how many times. For example, if the job advertisement uses a keyword 4 times, you should use the keyword 4 times.
Another tip? Some ATS do like a bit of color in fonts on your resume and some ATS hate color.
Over time, outside of Rock'em Sock'em, one of the items I would notice frequently was how well my resume seemed to be "understood" when I was submitting it...and that would clue me in to how well it was formatted overall. I'm referring to the step AFTER you can submit a resume but then you are allowed to "check it" for accuracy and you discover that it's put the wrong job with the wrong dates and interpreted the bullets wrong, etc. That always seemed to whisper to me..."Wait, if the system is having a hard time with the resume, what happens to all of the rest of my applications...or my LinkedIn profile?" It's a thought-provoking question! I'm not talking about that idea of:
- one resume for an ATS
versus
- one resume for humans
I'm only talking about resumes for ATS. The ATS seem to be remarkably dumb overall. I think I got one interview thanks to Rock'em and I felt way below expectations sitting in it. But I could see how the system could be wildly cheated. It really was an act of putting the right words in the right place just to get a chance to be in the top 5 candidates for a job. Outrageous. Broken. Despairing.
In summary, in my opinion, it is not worth buying Rock'em Sock'em but I despair over the entire ATS more.