The One-Page Resume That Gets Through an ATS and Past a Human
Applicant tracking systems are less mysterious than the folklore suggests. The real filter is a person, giving you about eight seconds.
Applications
Guides filed under Applications, newest first.
Ten Good Applications Beat a Hundred Rushed Ones
The maths of response rates explains why volume applying feels productive and almost never is.
What to Do With a Rejection
A rejection carries far less information than candidates extract from it, and the useful signal only appears across five or six of them.
What the AI Hiring Wave Actually Changed
The visible effect was not mass replacement but an arms race in application volume that made every part of hiring slower and more suspicious.
Writing a CV When You Are Changing Field
A career-change CV fails not because your experience is irrelevant but because you left the reader to work out why it is relevant, and they will not.
How to Ask for a Referral Without Making It Awkward
The people most likely to refer you are not close friends but the ones who barely know you and have nothing at stake in saying yes.
Your First Job When Entry-Level Roles Are Scarce
The generalist graduate tier has thinned. Here is where employers are still hiring people with no experience, and what to send them.
Do Cover Letters Still Matter? Yes, In Three Situations
Most cover letters are never read. The three cases where they decide the outcome are worth knowing, because the effort is wasted everywhere else.
How and When to Follow Up After Applying
One well-aimed follow-up at ten days moves applications; the second rarely does, and the third actively costs you.
Public Sector Work: Security, Pay Bands and a Slower Process
Public sector hiring rejects strong candidates for procedural reasons, and the compensation is not where most applicants think it is.
Nine CV Details That Get an Application Rejected
Applications are rarely rejected for weak experience. They are rejected for small, fixable details that give a screener a reason to stop reading.
How to Explain an Employment Gap on Your CV
Recruiters do not assume the worst about a gap. They assume the worst about a hole you have tried to hide, and they notice the hiding first.
Which Job Boards Are Worth Your Time
Most boards are a mirror of other boards, and the useful signal is not which listings exist but which ones are fresh.
How to Put Numbers on Work That Has No Numbers
Most jobs produce no revenue figure and no conversion rate. That does not mean they produce no numbers — it means you are looking for the wrong ones.