I applied to probably 400 jobs, and the only thing I was receiving was, rejection after rejection after rejection... endless list of rejections, then one interview, then rejections again.

Long story short after working for 7 years for the same company, I got laid off, so instead of making the cv from scratch, I reused most of it, did a collage and added the last new section.

This mistake costed me 12 months of applying and rejections.

Basically, the ATS don't read my cv.. It is a pdf but still greenhouse, bamboo and others struggle reading it.

A friend uploaded my cv in their HR tool.. to be honest I was shocked, If I think to how many jobs I got rejected, and wasted my time..

The error was saying that it was recognised as image and that the content was not readable.

Now add the fact that HR managers have very little time and tons of candidates to screen and there you go, the perfect recipe for a silent rejection.

Do you think that an Hiring manager would tell me: 'hey, your cv isn't readable?!' ahaha sure..

They trigger an automated email: 'REJECTED'. 99% of them are even automated.

I was in this disbelief of why the heck I get rejected all the time?! This is such a great fit and I applied even on the first few hours!

WHY?!?!

Based on that I did change my cv and used a prompt to check my cv all the time. With a stupid tool which now at least doesn't make a cv get rejected without knowing why..

Now I know exactly when it passes and when not. This stupid mistake made me loose so much time and confidence, I should have thought before...

I wonder if anybody as noticed the same pattern or issue in their applications…

p.s. this is my story and happened to me, doesn't mean it's the same for you, IT field if you wonder.

So many rejections, for so long for such a little stupid mistake...