Applicant Tracking Systems, Keyword Matching, and The Secret To Landing Jobs Right Now (with Peri Ginsberg) | Ep. 7

Strategic career skills and the job market today are the focus as Larry Port sits down with his old friend Peri Ginsberg, founder and head coach of Workforce Ready Now. Peri works heavily with college graduates, new graduates, and really early stage professionals who are navigating the workforce and feeling the pressure that the first job is going to make or break their entire career.

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Peri shares how careers are rarely linear, how any job is going to teach you something, and how her own pivots from civil and environmental engineer to management consulting, Office Depot, and entrepreneurship built the wherewithal to do what she is doing today. Larry and Peri walk through what applicant tracking systems actually are, why they are not AI or a robot, and why keyword matching and formatting can stop you from getting an interview. They talk about the seven second test for resumes, students getting ghosted after hundreds or thousands of applications, and why networking, LinkedIn outreach, and relationship building are still the secret to landing jobs right now.

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👤 Guest Bio

Peri Ginsberg is the founder and head coach of Workforce Ready Now and works heavily with college graduates, new graduates, and really early stage professionals in navigating the workforce. Educated as a civil and environmental engineer, she did that for a couple years, then transitioned into management consulting, which she really loved. After relocating to South Florida for family reasons and no longer being able to travel, Peri became a director in the project management office at Office Depot. Eventually she departed from the corporate lifestyle because she had that entrepreneurial bug, ran a hair salon for children, and pivoted through multiple roles that set her up for success as a coach on resumes, networking, and interviewing.

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📌 What We Cover

• Why careers are rarely linear, why that first job is not going to make or break your entire career, and how any job is going to teach you something, even what you do not like.
• Peri’s own pivots from civil and environmental engineer, to management consulting, to director in the project management office at Office Depot, to entrepreneurship and Workforce Ready Now.
• What applicant tracking systems are, why the ATS is not AI, not a robot, not an evil thing that is out to get you, and how must haves, nice to haves, and keyword matching score your resume.
• How pictures, a fancy logo, text boxes, and untraditional formatting can throw off the ATS, stop the system from parsing text correctly, and stop you from getting an interview, plus why ATS compliant templates matter.
• The difference between what the ATS cares about and what a human hiring manager cares about, including headings, dates, Times New Roman, tight spacing, one page resumes for college kids, and Peri’s seven second test with strategic bold and a touch of color.
• The Wall Street Journal picture of students sending out hundreds or thousands of resumes, getting crickets and being ghosted, blaming an evil applicant tracking system, and why networking is still essential.
• Networking that scares this generation, growing up behind a phone screen, the fear of picking up a phone and saying hello, and Peri’s coaching on LinkedIn messages that simply ask for a chat and information, not “Hey, will you hire me?”
• The Florida State and MLB story of Peri’s son, customized 300 character LinkedIn messages to three people at every MLB team, a call with someone at the Tampa Bay Rays, and an advocate who made sure three hiring managers had his resume in hand.
• Peri’s...