I recently spoke with Mona Adbel-Hailm, the co-inventor of Resunate.com, to learn more about her company’s new approach to resume creation.
In a nutshell, Resunate enables job seekers to create customized, job specific resumes. As I learned in a demo, your work experience gets screened against any job description and then indicates if you’re a strong match. Resunate then helps you improve your resume accordingly.
Here is my full conversation with Mona:
Q: Who is the team behind Resunate and why did you choose to build a business in the area of job hunting?
A: My co-founders and I met in my last semester of graduate school at Carnegie Mellon University. I became acquainted with a graduate research project, looking at different ways of applying cutting-edge technology to solve labor issues.
Our team interviewed unemployed individuals, asking them what pain points they faced. By and large, [they said] it was the time-consuming process of applying to jobs and tailoring their resumes that frustrated job seekers the most. From there, we spoke with hiring managers and HR directors to learn how they processed job applications. We discovered that employers utilize numerous kinds of technologies to screen candidates. We keep updating the product based on user feedback and testing new features against employer screening systems.
Q: Are job seekers having success with Resunate?
A: Our most recent study showed that resumes pre-screened with Resunate were two times more likely to be called back for an interview than a candidate’s original resume.
Q: Congratulations! One of the things I learned from our conversation is about the importance of resume parsers. Can you explain what a “parser” is and why job candidates need to know about this?
A: A parser is a tool within every applicant tracking system (ATS) that scans your resume and breaks up the words into a searchable database, removing all styling. The parser also assigns meaning to the content within your resume. This is important for candidates to know because the way you format your resume can affect how easy it is to scan and how much an employer sees.
Additionally, parsers provide employers a synopsis of your key skills when they scan your resume. That’s why it’s so important to have your resume format optimized for these scanning systems.
The greatest way to ensure you have a parser-friendly resume is to build well-organized resumes with as much relevant content to each job you apply to. This ensures the skills employers are looking for are the ones the parser will highlight.
Q: What are the biggest mistakes entry-level job seekers make on their resumes and what can they do to fix them?
A: The biggest mistake is sending out cookie-cutter resumes to every position. This undersells the job seeker and places that resume in the shredder pile. The easiest way entry-level job seekers can improve this is to pay attention to the job description and how they can contribute. Employers want to know how you’ll impact their organization.
Q: How do you see Resunate benefiting employers?
A: We launched a free widget for employers to utilize Resunate as a no-cost professional recruiting solution that enables employers to request applicants to screen themselves against their job opening before applying. Resunate helps employers save time by focusing on the most relevant experiences.
Q: This is all very cool and different. What’s on the horizon for Resunate?
A: We have many new features coming out, all with the goal of providing job seekers more insight into how employers evaluate their job application. One feature will be a “Parser Report” providing job seekers the exact information employers see, in partnership with the parser used by most job boards and Fortune 500 companies.
Another feature is in collaboration with the makers of the Myers Briggs® assessment. This feature, JobFit, will enable job seekers to verify their personality type and their natural work style preferences with Myers Briggs® to gauge job satisfaction, adding a whole new dimension to Resunate.
Thank you to Mona for answering my questions and sharing Resunate with us. Learn more at http://www.resunate.com.
