You've applied to 50 jobs. Maybe 80. Maybe more.
You spend 20 minutes on each application - customizing the cover letter, reading the job description, double-checking the requirements. You hit submit. And then... silence.
No rejection. No interview. Nothing.
It's one of the most demoralising feelings in the world. And the worst part? You don't even know what's going wrong.
I've been there. And after helping a lot of people fix their resumes, I can tell you - the answer is almost always hiding in one of these five places.
1. Your resume never reached a human
This is the most common reason. And most people have no idea it's happening.
Over 98% of mid-to-large companies use an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) - software that scans and filters resumes before any recruiter sees them. If your resume doesn't score high enough against the job description, it gets rejected automatically.
No human ever saw it. No human ever rejected you.
What the ATS is looking for:
- Exact keywords from the job description
- Clean formatting it can actually parse (no tables, text boxes, or multi-column layouts)
- Standard section headings like "Experience," "Education," "Skills"
Quick fix: Copy the job description into a word cloud tool. The biggest words are your must-have keywords. If they're not in your resume, add them - verbatim.
2. Your bullets describe tasks, not results
This is the second biggest killer.
Most resumes sound like a job description:
"Responsible for managing social media accounts and creating content."
That tells a recruiter nothing about you specifically. Every social media manager in the world could write that line.
What actually gets attention:
"Grew Instagram from 4,200 to 31,000 followers in 8 months through a weekly content series - reduced paid ad spend by 40%."
That's a story. That's specific. That's memorable.
The rule: Every bullet should answer "so what?" If you can delete it without losing anything meaningful, rewrite it.
3. You're sending the same resume everywhere
This one hurts to hear, but it's true.
A generic resume is optimized for nothing. A tailored resume is optimized for one specific job - and that's exactly what gets past ATS filters and catches recruiter attention.
You don't need to rewrite the whole thing. Just:
- Update your summary to match the role
- Reorder your skills to front-load what the JD emphasizes
- Swap 2-3 bullet points to mirror the JD's language
That alone can be the difference between a 45% ATS match and a 78% match.
4. Your contact information is broken (or missing)
I've seen this more times than I can count.
- Email in the header image (ATS can't read images)
- Phone number in the footer (ATS parsers often skip footers)
- LinkedIn URL that's broken or private
Make sure your name, email, phone, and LinkedIn are in plain text at the very top of your resume. Not in a table. Not in a header. Plain. Text.
5. Your resume format is confusing the parser
Some of the most beautiful resumes are completely unreadable to ATS software.
Formats that fail ATS:
- Canva resumes with columns and icons
- Word docs with tables for layout
- PDFs with embedded fonts that don't export correctly
- Two-column layouts where the parser reads columns left-to-right, mixing sentences from both sides
What works:
- Clean single-column or simple two-column layouts
- Exported from a proper resume builder (not Canva)
- Standard readable fonts - Arial, Calibri, Georgia
What to do right now
Check your ATS score before submitting any application. Tools like ResumeOrbitz let you paste the job description and instantly see your score, missing keywords, and what to fix.
Pick a clean ATS-friendly template. ResumeOrbitz has 100+ templates that are all tested to parse correctly - from Harvard-style bullet-point formats to modern two-column layouts.
Rewrite your bullets. Add numbers. Be specific. Delete anything vague.
Tailor before you submit. It takes 10 minutes. It changes everything.
The hard truth
You are probably qualified for most of the jobs you're applying to.
The problem isn't your experience. It's how your experience is being presented - and whether a piece of software is letting it through in the first place.
Most people fix 2-3 things on their resume and start getting interview calls within a week. The resume was always good enough. It just needed to be readable.
Don't give up. Fix the process, not yourself.
Originally published at https://resumeorbitz.com/blog/why-not-getting-interviews
