This is part of our Customer Stories series, where we ask real job seekers about their experience using Jobscan tools. Click here to read more stories.
Re-entering the job market is unsettling for anyone. But when you lose your job after being at the same company for 20 years, the job search landscape is completely foreign.
This was the new reality for Joy, a job seeker based in London. “I worked for a company for 20 years and moved around within the company in different departments.”
Like many workplaces, Joy’s company was impacted by the pandemic. The changes in her company’s operations, and a restructuring impacted Joy’s role in technical project management.
Joy recounts that “within the year of the pandemic, my role and my whole team were disbanded, and effectively the company reorganized. We were a group of project managers and a small project management office for one particular function within the company. And I think they wanted to streamline.”
“So I lost my role at that point. And I hadn’t looked for a job for a long time.”
Being with the same company for 20 years, Joy didn’t need to keep up with changes in hiring practices and the changing dynamic for job seekers. But she was quick to learn.
Joy meets Jobscan
One of the biggest changes in hiring over the last 20 years is the use of the ATS. The applicant tracking system, or ATS, is a central technology for recruiters. The ATS is a digital, searchable filing cabinet that stores resumes for a given job opening. A tailored resume with keywords from the job description is critical in getting your resume to the top of the pile and in front of the hiring team.
“I didn’t even know about the ATS. When I left the company, part of the package was that they linked us up with three months with a consultancy company that can coach us and help us with our resumes.”
This is when Joy met Jobscan’s suite of tools.
“I genuinely found Jobscan quite easy to work with. I found it sensible; it made sense.” – Joy, a successful Jobscan user
“I tailored all of my resumes. Sometimes it wasn’t a huge tailoring, but generally, I followed the rules. And I think that’s made me super successful.”
By using Jobscan and optimizing her resume for each job posting, she found her new role after a layoff.
The next career steps post-layoff
Joy’s next career move wasn’t perfect. “The first role I got after I left my previous company was a permanent position, but it was with a consultancy company. But within about a year or so after that, I went freelance. So, even more, I have a reliance on Jobscan.”
Now, Joy works with a range of organizations on a contract basis. Between jobs, she turns to Jobscan to polish her resume and land her next freelance position.
“And I’ve got a contract now for 18 months, but as soon as that is finished, I will join Jobscan again.”
Writing a resume from scratch
Joy faced a unique barrier after being out of the job market for two decades: she didn’t have a resume.
“The first challenge was I didn’t even know where my resume was. I was really starting fresh after 20 years in one place. I had such a blocker that I had to get through, and I felt so awkward about it.”
She felt so out of her depth and didn’t know how to ask for help. “I remember thinking how awkward I felt that I didn’t want to ask people if I could share their CVs.”
Jobscan helped break down the modern job search and demystified the unknowns about the ATS.
“Just to understand that it’s a simple process that you’ve got to follow. And so the concept of tailoring every single resume for every job seems daunting, but once you start doing it, it actually completely makes sense.”
By understanding how the ATS works, the value of keywords, and resume best practices, Joy regained the momentum in her job search.
“It’s just getting that resume and getting yourself on the road. Once you’re on the road, you can fiddle and play with it.”
Optimizing her resume with Power Edit
In today’s job search landscape, the ATS streamlines the recruiting and hiring process. Adding searchable keywords from the job description is more important than ever.
For Joy, being able to see the job description and her resume side by side in Jobscan’s Power Edit helped her understand the importance of keyword match.
“You can actually go and click on the job description to see exactly what they’ve written. And in some instances—because it’s something as simple as the fact that they’ve used manager or management or program and those types of simplicities—it’s just a matter of going: ‘Okay, you want to use that word.’ I’ll use that word.”
She quickly learned how to recognize her skills in relation to the job description and make sure she was applying for the best jobs.
She recounts, “In other instances, it’s just a slight nuance. Which was another reason I liked the tool because it made me really look at the job that was being advertised to understand what they said they wanted. And then link that up to: ‘Is it something I can do?'”
Tracking job applications with Job Tracker
When you’re sending out dozens of tailored resumes, you can lose track of your job search quickly. After optimizing hundreds of resumes, Joy used Job Tracker to manage her resumes, job descriptions, cover letters, and interview information all in one place.
“It’s a tool where you can track your whole job search activity. You can go quite deep into it and line by line.”
Below is a sample job tracker overview dashboard that houses all your saved jobs, jobs you applied for, and jobs in the interview and offer phases.
When you open the opportunity card, you can see more information, like the example below. You can reference the job description, your tailored resume, your AI-generated cover letter, interview notes, and general comments.
During the chaos of the job search, Jobscan went beyond optimizing Joy’s resume to land her next roles.
“It helps you organize yourself.”
With hundreds of resumes on her job tracker dashboard, Joy appreciated the chance to go back to older applications and assess her journey.
She shared, “You can go back and say, ‘Did I get an interview? Did I not get an interview?’ You have all your statistics there, and you can use it in so many different ways.”
As a contractor, Joy’s application process moves quickly, so having all the information about the role easily accessible makes for a smooth transition.
“For a person who is now doing consultancy work, it’s a rapid turnaround. The one I’m on now is for 18 months, and the last one ended up being 17 months, but they can be quite short. It’s quite nice to know that when I go back to searching for a new contract, I know the Jobscan tools. I know what it gives me.”
