Job hunt­ing can be a num­bers game, but strat­e­gy, rather than luck, is what makes it suc­cess­ful. If you’re aim­ing blind­ly, you’ll find that you’ll repeat­ed­ly get reject­ed or worse, ghost­ed.

Rather than bury­ing your head in the sand and send­ing out anoth­er round of appli­ca­tions, it’s bet­ter to take a step back and trou­bleshoot the real rea­sons why you’re not get­ting hired. That way, you can improve the qual­i­ty (not quan­ti­ty) of your appli­ca­tions and increase your chances of land­ing a job you like.

So, here are some rea­sons why you might not be get­ting hired, as well as how to fix them.

1. You’re Overqualified

If you’re not get­ting call­backs, the prob­lem may be that you’re overqual­i­fied for a list­ing. Com­pa­nies look for a close fit—which means they need a can­di­date who meets as many of their require­ments as pos­si­ble.

Cer­tain jobs, par­tic­u­lar­ly those in spe­cial­ized fields, require a bunch of cer­ti­fi­ca­tions.

Recruiters cross-check for these required qual­i­fi­ca­tions for the job dur­ing the ear­ly stages of the hir­ing process.

Being overqual­i­fied for a job can raise red flags for most recruiters. They’d regard the appli­cant as some­one who might feel under­em­ployed and quit in a short while. Because hir­ing is a cost­ly and time-con­sum­ing process, most com­pa­nies would rather not have short-term hires.

To increase your chances of get­ting hired, match the skills on your resume to the job you’re apply­ing for. Pre­pare to show that you’re will­ing to do the tasks required, even if they are less com­plex than your last job.

2. Your CV Isn’t Impressive

Recruiters have to sift through a large num­ber of resumes when con­sid­er­ing appli­cants for a role, so if yours is unin­ter­est­ing, it will be dis­card­ed. You can expect a sim­i­lar out­come if your resume isn’t tai­lored to the job require­ments.

What to do instead? You should tai­lor your resume and cov­er let­ter for each type of position—for exam­ple, you might have a con­tent strat­e­gy resume and cov­er let­ter and anoth­er for prod­uct management—as well as oth­er spe­cif­ic roles you’re inter­est­ed in. Focus on empha­siz­ing your rel­e­vant expe­ri­ence as accom­plish­ments in your CV, and make sure to include major key­words from the job descrip­tion.

By tai­lor­ing your resume and cov­er let­ter, you’re mak­ing it clear to any­one read­ing your appli­ca­tion how you are qual­i­fied for the posi­tion, and sub­se­quent­ly, increas­ing your chances of land­ing a call­back and/or job offer.

So, before you send out anoth­er appli­ca­tion, update your resume with these tips. Here’s a list of oth­er essen­tials for a win­ning resume to guide you as well.

Relat­ed: Resume Apps to Make Your CV Dif­fer­ent and Eye-Catch­ing For a Job Hunt

3. Your Resume Isn’t Properly Formatted for an ATS

If you’ve done every­thing to opti­mize your resume and are still hear­ing crick­ets, there’s one more thing to do. It’s pos­si­ble that your appli­ca­tion isn’t cor­rect­ly for­mat­ted for an appli­cant track­ing sys­tem (ATS).

An ATS is a com­put­er pro­gram that scans appli­ca­tions for eli­gi­bil­i­ty based on the recruiters’ cri­te­ria. Because this is a robot and not a human, it’ll be pro­grammed to vet and approve only resumes that con­tain cer­tain key­words or phras­es.

Your resume will be dis­card­ed if it is in an unread­able for­mat for the ATS or if it lacks the required key­words. Due to the high vol­ume of appli­cants, most online job appli­ca­tion por­tals will use an ATS.

To ensure that the ATS reads your resume cor­rect­ly, fol­low these steps:

1. Avoid fan­cy lay­outs: Tables, graph­ics, fan­cy fonts, non-stan­dard bul­let points and columns should all be avoid­ed. Tables, for exam­ple, allow can­di­dates to pack a lot of info on their resume while con­serv­ing space, so it’s not uncom­mon to use them. But, ATS pro­grams often have dif­fi­cul­ty pars­ing or ren­der­ing the info in a table sec­tion, so entire sec­tions can get jum­bled or com­plete­ly lost.
2. Use key­words in the appro­pri­ate con­text: Recruiters are like­ly to search for qual­i­fied appli­cants using terms direct­ly from the pub­lished job descrip­tion, so ana­lyze it for the skills and expe­ri­ences they’re look­ing for, then include the ones you have in your resume—using the same terms.
3. Use con­ven­tion­al head­ings for your sec­tions: Use terms like “Expe­ri­ence” and “Edu­ca­tion” as head­ings, instead of “Where I’ve Worked” and “Schools Attend­ed”.

Relat­ed: How to Get Your Resume Past the Appli­cant Track­ing Sys­tem

4. Your Interviewing Skills Could Use Some Work

Recruiters will learn about you first through your resume, and the first inter­view will give them the oppor­tu­ni­ty to see if you are who you say you are on paper. The first inter­view tells hir­ing man­agers a lot about you, includ­ing how well you com­mu­ni­cate and think crit­i­cal­ly, as well as your pro­fes­sion­al­ism and unique per­son­al­i­ty traits.

In today’s world, a can­di­date’s per­son­al­i­ty is just as impor­tant as their qual­i­fi­ca­tions and expe­ri­ence. Recruiters want to know appli­cants’ core val­ues, response to pres­sure and chal­lenges, and even how they get along with col­leagues. That’s why behav­ioral inter­views are becom­ing so pop­u­lar. You don’t want to be the per­son who can’t read body lan­guage, under­stand humor, or keep up with small talk. That per­son is high­ly unlike­ly to be hired.

Relat­ed: How to Use the STAR Method to Ace Behav­ioral Inter­views

To stand out in a job inter­view, con­scious­ly hone inter­view skills such as active lis­ten­ing, eye con­tact and oth­er body lan­guage, empa­thy, sto­ry­telling, and small talk. Most of these skills can be improved sim­ply by being aware of and mind­ful­ly prac­tic­ing them, so if you’re read­ing this, you’re already halfway there.

Also, pre­pare for the inter­view by learn­ing how to answer com­mon inter­view ques­tions like a pro. Although inter­views are becom­ing more cre­ative and uncon­ven­tion­al, many com­pa­nies con­tin­ue to use tra­di­tion­al ques­tions to get a gen­er­al sense of where the can­di­date’s mind is at.

5. You Didn’t Research the Company

Anoth­er fac­tor that could affect your job search is not doing enough research on the com­pa­ny and role. Dur­ing an inter­view, many employ­ers ask ques­tions to assess a can­di­date’s knowl­edge of the com­pa­ny and the job. They want to know that a poten­tial employ­ee has done their home­work on the com­pa­ny and is gen­uine­ly inter­est­ed in work­ing there.

This is one stone that can­di­dates tend to leave unturned because it seems unlike­ly that a com­pa­ny will pass up a qual­i­fied can­di­date just because they did­n’t know who the CEO was. But it’s a sig­nif­i­cant cri­te­ri­on because employ­ers con­sid­er your like­li­hood of accept­ing an offer before extend­ing one. Hav­ing knowl­edge about the com­pa­ny is one way to demon­strate your inter­est.

Relat­ed: Sites to Learn How to Pre­pare for a Job Inter­view and Impress Boss­es

There are sev­er­al plat­forms to get start­ed with your pre-inter­view research—Glassdoor, LinkedIn, the com­pa­ny’s web­site, and good old Google Search. Study a com­pa­ny’s prod­ucts and ser­vices, and pre­pare to dis­cuss how you’ve used them or sim­i­lar ones in the past. Also, get famil­iar with the com­pa­ny’s goals and objec­tives, and sell your­self by dis­cussing how you can help with achiev­ing them in light of the unique val­ue you offer.

They say the inter­net nev­er for­gets, and it sounds omi­nous, but it’s true. With the reach and poten­tial of social media plat­forms increas­ing by the hour, more peo­ple are being more inten­tion­al about how they present them­selves online.

Hav­ing unpro­fes­sion­al con­tent on your social media can jeop­ar­dize your job search. Recruiters and poten­tial clients can eval­u­ate your com­pe­tence and suit­abil­i­ty for a job based on your online per­son­al­i­ty and activ­i­ties.

As a result, when job hunt­ing, it’s crit­i­cal to pay atten­tion to how you use and con­duct your­self on social media. You’ll need to clean up your social media pages if there’s any inap­pro­pri­ate con­tent on them. To help you get start­ed, here’s a guide to clean­ing up your social media for a job search.

Refine Your Approach

Job hunt­ing is a del­i­cate process, and you need to be a pol­ished per­former to land that job, as com­pe­ti­tion is stiff. Hope­ful­ly, this arti­cle has assist­ed you in iden­ti­fy­ing areas where you may be mak­ing mis­takes, adjust­ing your meth­ods, and accel­er­at­ing your exit from unem­ploy­ment.

It might take a while before you land the job of your dreams, so read up on how to stay focused and moti­vat­ed dur­ing your job search.

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