It’s not your imagination: things really are tough out there. Today I’ll bring you my second piece of advice for navigating this strange, tricky job market.
Tip 2: Customize.
You’ve probably heard the advice to tailor your resume for each job you apply to. It’s more important than ever when there are fewer jobs available, so be strategic about what you spend time applying for, and really work to demonstrate your fit for the role.
Even after your resume gets past an applicant tracking system (these are the AI tools designed to weed out unqualified candidates), the first person who looks over your materials is likely to spend less than 10 seconds doing so, so it’s important that you make your ability to do the job crushingly obvious.
How can you do that? Well, you can certainly use online AI tools like Claude, Duck AI, or ChatGPT. But I prefer the resume-specific sites like, Cultivated Culture, JobScan, ResumeWorded, or Teal. Because these are focused on job applications, they will give you information about your formatting and word usage we well as scanning for how well you’re matching what’s in the job description. Bonus: all the sites listed are either free or have free versions, so see which you like.
If your field is one in which cover letters are standard, you can also tailor yours to each role. Tell them more about you than where you found the posting. The cover letter is a great place to tell your story, since it’s usually something that’s only considered after you’ve made it past the initial gatekeepers. So write it to whomever you hope is reading it. How did you get interested in this field or industry? How do your skills translate? What sets you apart? This is a great place to showcase your writing skills and your personality. But keep it on the shorter side—just under a page in length is ideal. Since the idea is for them to read the letter instead of skimming it (that’s what your resume is for), you’ll want to be brief enough to keep their attention, while still giving them a little demonstration of who you are.
