Finding it hard to get a new job? Robot recruiters might be to blame

More recruiting companies are using AI technology to review applications. But does it make mistakes - and can you boost your chances?

Martin Burch had been working for the Wall Street Journal and its parent company Dow Jones for a few years and was looking for new opportunities. One Sunday in May 2021, he applied for a data analyst position at Bloomberg in London that looked like the perfect fit. He received an immediate response, asking him to take a digital assessment.

It was strange. The assessment showed him different shapes and asked him to figure out the pattern. He started feeling incredulous. Shouldn't we be testing my abilities on the job?" he asked himself.

Instead of trying to stand out, make your resume machine-readable: no images, no special characters such as ampersands or tildes. Use the most common template. Use short, crisp sentences - declarative and quantitative, said Ian Siegel, CEO of the job platform ZipRecruiter

List licenses and certifications on your resume

Make sure your resume matches the keywords in the job description and compare your resume to the job description using online resume scanners to see if you are a match for the role

For entry-level and administrative jobs, consider stating that you are competent in Microsoft office suite applications even if it's not in the job description, said Harvard business professor Joe Fuller.