TIPS FOR CANDIDATES

Why your RESUME is not selected and Why you don’t get callback from Recruiters

The mantra is RIGHT JOB FOR THE RIGHT CANDIDATE. Before you go for an interview – your Resume is the only thing which is presented before the Recruiter and he decides on the basis of your Resume whether you are capable of handling this Position or not. So you should make your Resume look good or attractive to the Recruiter or to the Client.

For any particular position the Recruiter have 40-50 or even more Resumes in hand. But they cannot go through each and every Resume line by line. So their target is to get some 4-8 good Resumes which are fit for this job and to give a call and schedule for 1st round of Interview. So nobody have so much of time to go through each and every Resume. So they Reject a Resume within 7secs.

What exactly the Recruiters or Clients look in a Resume

1. If a position is there for Java / Salesforce / Python developer or anything. The Resume should and must have mentioned the term “Java” / “Salesforce” / “Python” atleast 30 – 40 times in the whole Resume. Why so many times – The Recruiters or HR Managers just do CTRL+F in your Resume and if they see the specialized term (Java / Salesforce / Python or anything) is just 5 – 8 times mentioned only, then they feel or assume that this is not a good Resume or you are not a strong candidate. Though you are much more capable and very good in your technology – they will not give you a call or schedule an interview if you have not mentioned it 30 – 40 times. By mentioning so many times in your Resume it gives STRENGTH and POWER to your Resume to be on top of all other candidates.

2. The Summary of your Resume should and must be 5 – 7 lines. The Summary should always start from “Have 8+ years of Java Development experience” / “15+ years of Salesforce Development experience” / “2+ years of Python Development experience”. These things save the Recruiters or HR Managers time and its a eye catcher for them to understand what exactly your Resume is all about. You can always change it according to the JD (Job Description). For example if the position is for Java Full stack Developer and you have good expertise on both front end and backend then change it to “Have 8+ years Java Full Stack Development experience”. These small changes puts your Resume much ahead of others.

3. Put your Education details properly. Always mention your year of completion of your Graduation or Post Graduation (MS) on your Resume. I personally rejected many Resumes only due to these things. The format should be anyway but but you can follow the below one

Course Name, University Name, State with Country – Year of Completion

Bachelors of Technology – Computers, University of Ohio, Ohio US – 1994

4. Mention the positions which you have handled in your previous organizations properly. For example if the position is for “Senior Lead Java Developer” and you have 11+ years of Java Development experience and on and off you did some Lead work also and you think that you can handle the situation very well, then change your Resume recent Title to “Sr. Lead Java Developer”. Just Align your Resume with the Clients JD (Job Description). But you should know how to handle the interview and then your Job on the floor. If possible try to align all your previous Job Titles according to the JD of that particular opening. For example your are a typical Java Developer with 11 years of experience (this is very good exp.) and your all Job titles are in your Resume is like “Java Developer” / “Sr. Java Developer”. If a position comes for “Full stack Developer” then change all your titles to “Full Stack Developer” – it helps, but you should have very good knowledge about the technology otherwise there is no use and lot of time is wasted.

5. Update your Linkedin. Your Linkedin should and must have more than 600+ connections. These days every Recruiter or HR Manager looks into the Linkedin first before making a final call on you. So there should and must be a Linkedin account at any cost. 90% of the companies look in to the Linkedin to check the Genuiness of the profile / Resume. Even many organizations don’t hire if the profile don’t have more than 500+ connections. To improve your connections within a week to more than 500+ just send connection Request to “US IT Recruiters” / “Technical Recruiters” / “Bench Sales Recruiters”. These people accept your Request within 24 hours without thinking much.

6. Mention gap in your MS education duration. After completing your MS in USA most of the students are ready to work and looking for the Job but they show that they were working during their Masters also. These things never work and Client immediately rejects your application. If you have completed your Masters (from Jan 2010 – Jun 2011) then atleast show 8 – 12 months of gap in that period because Clients look for those things. But most of the Candidates don’t show any gap rather they put some company name where they were working (to add up more exp.) and its a blunder. Always mention Year of completion of your Masters or Bachelors in your Resume.

7. I am writing this article on 5th Jun 2024 and the current USA Market scenario from the last 2 years is terrible. The Market is very BAD. Jobs are less and Layoff are more. The pay rates have fall down terribly. So what you have to do to at this moment. Follow couple of things which are mentioned below:-

a) Upload and Update (every 10 days) your Resume in Monster, Dice, Tech Fetch, Career Builder and Indeed.

b) Put “Open To Work” frame in Linkedin and put your profile pic and maintain your Linkedin account decently. Atleast 500+ connections should be there.

c) Search and Apply for Jobs in Linkedin, Dice, Monster, Career Builder, Tech Fetch and Indeed.

d) Try collecting emails from Linkedin on a daily basis. In Linkedin in SEARCH BAR type “updating vendor list” and select Posts and select “24 hours” time. You will get so many results of Recruiters posting for “Updating Vendor List”. Just go through every Post and see in the Comment section there are many Recruiters have mentioned their mail ids – just copy them and keep in your excel sheet and in the next morning just mail your Resume to them and ask for any new opportunities for a particular role. They will help you definitely. Get as many mails as you can. Just see the below pic for more clarity. The emails in the image have been blurred due to privacy.

e) more will be added very soon..

8. When a position comes read the JD properly and see what they are looking for exactly. Align your Resume accordingly. For example if there is a Java Developer position with mandatory skills like Spring boot, JMS, JPA, Spring MVC, Hibernate. Your Resume should and must have all these skills. First of all the term “Java” should be mentioned 30 – 40 times in the Resume and the rest skills like Spring boot, JMS, JPA, Spring MVC, Hibernate should be minimum 7 times each in your Resume. But you should be very much aware and well versed with these technologies. You should have good experience with these technologies. Many Candidates have good expertise in their Domain or technical side they just don’t mention it in the Resume and due to which their application always gets Rejected. So mention couple of time in your Resume. Mentioning the sub technologies 1 – 2 times do not give Strength or POWER to your Resume. Atleast mention 7 – 8 times but your core specialization like Java / Salesforce / Python / Hadoop etc. should be mentioned 30 – 40 times.

9. Once your Resume is liked by the Recruiter or HR Manager he/she calls you for initial screening. In the Initial screening 90% of the time they only check your Confidence level only and if your comm. skills are very good then 50% of the Job is done. They will immediately arrange you the 1st round of Technical interview.

10. Negotiate Pay rate properly. The Current Market scenario is really bad and rates are very low. For example a 10 year H1B Java Developer is getting just $58 – $65/hr and that too he don’t gets fully due to other reasons because he is on H1B and he gets very low rate. If you have the authority (due to good repo with your employer) to negotiate then ask for $90/hr and stick to that for some time but slowly somewhere you will get around $75/hr if the Client is Big or the Recruiter is trying to make some big margin. Negotiate aggressively.

11. If the Client is looking for USC / GC holders only for any position then there is no use of submitting your application if you are other than USC / GC. Don’t speak with the Recruiter and try to push your Resume – nothing will happen to your application. I have seen many times that Candidates or Bench Sales Recruiters try to push the Resumes for a position where all the required work authorization do not match with their candidate. This is the same happens when the required skill set doesn’t match with the Candidates skill set. Your Resume will be lying just like that and nothing happens. So try to update your Resume according to JD skill set, if you have some expertise / proficiency with those skills. I already told just don’t mention 1 – 2 times it doesn’t make sense much. Try adding those sub skills atleast 7 – 10 times – it makes sense.

12. If you are a Developer then Resume should and must contain those terminologies which reflect that you are a Developer. Terms like “Develop”, “Design”, “Integrate”, “Implements”, etc. These terms makes your Resume look Professional. If you are a Java Architect then Resume should have some extensive Project works where you Lead a big team or your Leadership Qualities and extensive complicated Programming ability should be there on the Resume. The similar type of terminologies will apply for Salesforce Admin, Data Analyst, Electrical Engineers, Coordinators, Business Analyst, Business System Analyst, etc.

13. Now funny but small things to be taken care. If you are a Java Developer / Salesforce Developer / Python Developer then don’t mention in your whole Resume Java / Salesforce / Python in small letters like java / salesforce / python. The Client may not like it and looks at you as very unprofessional.

14. Don’t put a Google Voice call number as your phone number in your Resume. 70 – 80% of the Recruiters don’t entertain these candidates.

15. Due to the current market scenario – many candidates i personally know they are Moonlighting (dual jobs at one time). If you are a workaholic or if you can handle two Jobs at one time Remotely then you can do that – because the pay rates have been decreased and they are very low at this moment. These things will make up your monthly expenses but it may effect your health too. So stay Healthy and be Careful.

16. If somebody from any country is planning to come to USA for work at this moment, then try to avoid as much as you can because the Market is very BAD. Unless and until you are very good at your technical skills and you think with 1 interview you can crack it – then only try considering moving to the USA. (posted on 5th June 2024).

17. Candidates living outside USA and still looking for Jobs in USA as Remote or Onsite. So they need to have proper Work Authorization (Visa) to work in USA either Remote or Onsite. Secondly they need to be in USA (lots of background checks happen). So don’t think for a Remote Job in US you can do it anywhere from the world. There are a couple of exceptions but 98% of the time you should have proper Work Authorization and need to present in US.

18. more crucial points will be added very soon like Resume format, etc…