There are a lot of employment tools out there that you can use. These tools range from social media sites like LinkedIn to job searching engines like Indeed. These websites help you narrow down your prospects in the industry that you want to work in.
Another tool that you can use to help you with this is Jobscan. It’s an application-scanning website where you can upload your resume and see how you can make it stronger by using specific keywords and phrases.
But what is Jobscan? How can you use it to enhance your resume job description? There are two versions—the free and the premium—so we’ll go over some of the basic tools and see if the paid version is worth it.
What Is Jobscan?
Jobscan’s area of expertise is data. The platform acknowledges from the get-go that in a crowded market most things come down to numbers.
Sifting through large piles of resumes is often machine-assisted, and machines don’t care about your potential. Machines only care about which words you’ve used and the “value” that has been assigned to them. Jobscan knows this and tries to play into it.
Jobscan’s primary function is to read your resume and cover letter. From there, it will tell you how likely you are to make it past first-round filters based upon the language you’ve used in your application. The company has explained that its algorithm is based on “more than 300 ATS vendors (Applicant Tracking Systems).” It also regularly updates this algorithm with new info.
Running your submission package through Jobscan’s software is useful when you’re applying to a very large company. In situations like these, the risk of being cut out of the hiring pool because of a lack of keywords is higher.
What Can You Do With Jobscan’s Free Plan?
In Jobscan you have two options: using their free version or paying for the premium. The cost of the premium can quickly add up, so let’s go over the tools available in the free version.
The Ability to Upload a Job Post
Jobscan needs to scan the job posting you’re responding to when you use it, regardless of the version. It is from this posting that it pulls the keywords and hard skills needed to make you stand out. From there, it makes a determination on what recruiters will be looking for based upon the data in its internal systems.
After Jobscan compares the posting to your application, it will grant your resume a score based upon how many key points you’ve hit.
The Ability to Upload and Scan Your Resume
You can also upload and scan your resume with the free version of Jobscan. Unfortunately, cover letter optimization is only available in the premium version: by uploading both you can get a more accurate score.
That said, even uploading your resume by itself will get you a long way. It can help you increase your focus. An important thing to note is that your score will be based upon the aforementioned keywords and hard skills, along with the job title of the position you’re applying to.
The Ability to Revise Your Resume Based Upon the Score
Lastly, Jobscan will give you a list of concrete changes that you need to make to catch a recruiter’s eye.
These suggestions range from keywords you should insert to “negative” language you should avoid. It will also tell you about potential sections that may be missing. After this, Jobscan will indicate how to include these things to increase your own credibility, ranging from emails to website addresses.
In order to increase your success rate, Jobscan warns that the title of the position you are applying for is a factor in your “match rate”. If you haven’t worked a job with that title before, you can include it as a keyword in your cover letter to make up for this lack.
Once you make these changes, rescan your resume and Jobscan will adjust your score. 80 percent or above is considered a good rate.
In general, this is great news if you’re applying to a job at a big company with a lot of applicants. It’s also good news if you use this tool in conjunction with mock interview websites to help you prepare for a job.
The only downside? Jobscan wants you to get off the free version and onto their premium one. It only lets you scan five resumes per month—this includes rescans when you make your adjustments. That’s barely anything.
Is Jobscan Premium Worth It?
It’s true that if you don’t use up your monthly allowance of free scans that Jobscan will accumulate them. It will continue to collect these scans until you have a max of 20 scans that you can use at once. It’s also true that you can earn job scans through Jobscan’s rewards program.
Additionally, you can do a lot more with the premium version.
You can scan your cover letter, get unlimited scanning, LinkedIn optimization, and “ATS-friendly templates”. These are all really useful tools to have.
Unfortunately, it’s also true that if you have no income that Jobscan’s paid plan will hurt your wallet. The very last thing you want to do is start paying for another subscription service when you have no income to offset it.
With this in mind, the question of “is paying for Jobscan worth it?” depends on what you’re using Jobscan for.
If you’re applying to jobs in an industry where machine-assisted tools are less likely to be used, then you can get away with using the free version. Just use it for the biggest of your job applications, where it will be of better use.
If you’re in an industry where ATS technology is commonplace, then it would be prudent to look into one of the paid options. This is especially true if you already have a job and you’re currently looking for another. It might mean that you have a bit of cash to spare.
Use This Data to Your Advantage
Jobscan is a great tool that can help you with your job search. You can use it to increase your chances of getting a call-back when it comes to certain fields.
Is it the only tool out there that can help you, however? Absolutely not. Here’s a list of job searching tools that will help you find the perfect career.
Read the full article: How Jobscan Helps You Tailor Your Resume to Job Descriptions
