I’m as convinced as a person can be that the resume-first hiring processes are just marginally worse than doing nothing at all. I spent 15 years tweaking resumes, writing cover letters, and generally taking all the very good advice I got only to have it never turn a cent of profit for me. What finally got me out of that pattern was a really odd situation where one of my articles got just enough heat on it that I was allowed to circumvent the middle part of the interview process and go straight to hiring manager interviews. And it was a whole different ballgame because I was now talking to someone who had both the power and desire to hire someone for a position, as opposed to someone whose biggest goal was keeping sufficient people away from that stage to keep them out of trouble.