I was talking to the principle of this primary school I’ve been subbing at for most of this year and he was telling me about the automated process our résumé’s go through since they upgraded the online system.

Now, for a while I’ve known that they have a program that can look at your résumé and pull out certain information to help with online applications. Name, previous work experience, that sort of thing. But, as it turns out it doesn’t stop there. The program will search through your skills section looking for words that relate back to skill requirements for the job you’re applying for. If it doesn’t find enough of those words, it will eliminate your application entirely from that listing without any living creature ever laying eyes on it.

So anyone having trouble finding work, there’s a heads up. If a slow-to-act school system is using this technology, you can bet it’s being used elsewhere.