"If it's not in your work experience, it didn't happen"

“If they actually have experience with X skill, why isn’t it listed in their work experience?”

Why it matters:

This is one of the most common pieces of feedback that we receive from our hiring managers across the board.

Something that’s fairly common with job seekers is that they over-rely on summaries and skills sections. Maybe it’s because they’re trying too hard to fit their resume into one page. Or maybe it’s because they simply don’t have the proper feedback from recruiters and HMs on their resume.

But you’re doing yourself a disservice with this.

Now you might be thinking to yourself:

• “It’s on my resume, of course I have experience with it!”

• “Recruiters are dumb. All they are looking for is keywords!”

Think about it for a second. Recruiters and Hiring Managers are reviewing dozens (and sometimes 100s) of candidates at any given time.

They aren’t going to call every single candidate and say “Do you have experience with X skill”. There simply isn’t enough time in the day to do that. Believe it or not, recruiters are pretty busy these days.

Make it easy for them to say “yes”

For those who have signed up for my career coaching service, they’ll tell you the very first thing I cover is “making it as easy as possible for recruiters to call you”.

Here’s what I mean by that…

Recruiters right now are absolutely overwhelmed. That sounds funny since the market is crap at the moment. But think about it like this. Internal recruiters got whacked as much as anyone else the past few years. HR departments are bare bone right now. So the ones that lasted are doing the work of 3-5 people.

I just spoke to one recruiter who is working on 66 jobs with 100+ applicants on each job. How crazy is that!

So here’s where “making it easy” for them comes into play.

You have a resume where you’re not clearly outlining your experience in the “work experience” portion of your resume.

Chances are, they are going to skim your resume for 5 seconds and pass on you because they don’t think you have the required experience and moving onto the next person. If they find a handful of people they’re satisfied with, then they’ve done their job and they’re moving onto the next role.

“What you used and where”

Let’s pretend you’re a Software Engineer. You’re applying to a role where they’re looking for recent Python experience.

You have Python listed in your resume in the skills and/or summary section, but not in the actual work experience bullet points.

How is the recruiter/HM supposed to know where you used python or how much experience you have with it?

For all they know, you just toyed around with it in Udemy or Leetcode and never used it in an actual workplace setting.

By adding Python to your resume in this example, it shows where you’ve used it, and how much actual work experience you have with it, making it as easy as possible to the hiring team that you’re a qualified candidate.

Are hiring managers and recruiters being too difficult?

Listen, we are in an employer’s market right now. The first one since 2008/2009, so most people in the industry aren’t used to operating within one when looking for a new job.

You can call it being picky all you want, but at the end of the day, if they’re getting qualified applicants and filling their roles, it doesn’t matter what you think.

You can either adapt or keep complaining.

You have to think about it from their POV right now.

If they have 10 good candidates who have the experience clearly listed in their work experience section, and you don’t, why should they give you the time of day? It’s as simple as that.

Bottom Line:

Add all of your relevant skills in the work experience section. It’s as simple as that.

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