Got rejected from 6 companies silently, then found out why (resume was the culprit)
Okay so this is a bit embarrassing to share but maybe it'll help someone.
I was applying everywhere for the past 2 months — startups, MNCs, even some decent-paying internships. Sending 10-15 applications a week. Getting ghosted on almost all of them. One or two rejections after a HR round, nothing beyond that.
I genuinely thought the market was just bad. You know how everyone says "it's not you, it's the market"? I believed that.
Then a friend pointed out something — he asked me if I had ever actually checked whether my resume is ATS-compatible. I said yes obviously (I used a clean Word template lol). He showed me how most companies in India literally never see your resume as a human first — it goes through an ATS filter, gets scored, and if you're below a threshold you just... disappear.
I went and checked my resume against a job description I had applied to. The keyword overlap was embarrassingly low. Like I had the skills, just not the words they were scanning for. A software tool called BluffHR does this — you upload your CV and the JD together and it runs around 20 different checks in like 30 seconds. ATS score, missing keywords, interview prep questions tailored to the role, stuff like that.
Within a week of tweaking my resume based on the gaps it showed, I started actually getting calls.
Not saying it's magic. The interviews still need you to perform. But I genuinely did not know my resume was losing me before I even got a chance to speak.
If you're in that silent rejection loop, maybe check your resume before assuming the market hates you. It might just be an ATS thing.