When AI Rejects Your Resume: How to Beat Auto-Rejections and Get More Corporate Interviews as a Former Pastor

♟️ STRATEGY SHIFT: How to get rejected less often in your ministry career change.

The strategy needs to shift.

The strategy for ministry leaders transitioning to the marketplace should change from “getting past AI and the ATS” to “optimizing for human readers while being aware of AI ranking systems.”

Here are two strategies you can use to get into more interviews as a pastor in transition:

1. Adjust how you write your resume.

2. Bypass the security system.

How you write your resume.

AI is being used to rank your resume compared to other applicants by focusing on a few key aspects.

1. Keywords. Are you using language that you would use to explain your experience to other pastors or ministry leaders? Or are you translating your experience using words and phrases that the company or industry is accustomed to?

2. Actions. Does your resume explicitly talk about actions you’ve taken in your career that are also outlined in the job description? For example, if the job description says, “conduct consistent one-on-one meetings with direct reports,” and you have experience doing that, does your resume say it? (As an aside, don’t copy and paste. Recruiters see right through that tactic. Use the words, but phrase them the way you might.)

3. Results. The job description will outline specific results the person who is hired for the role should accomplish. Does your resume outline how you have produced similar results?

4. Metrics. These first three above are really for the scoring and ranking system. Metrics are when human readers come in and start comparing the scope of the work you have done and the results you have produced, compared to the other applicants.

I wrote two newsletters going deeper on how to do this: How to Translate Your Ministry Experience for Corporate Jobs: Step-by-Step Guide for Former Pastors (part 1) and How to Translate Your Ministry Experience for Corporate Jobs: Step-by-Step Guide for Former Pastors (part 2).

Bypassing the security system.

The ATS is like a security system in a building or your house. It is meant to allow the right people in and keep the unqualified people out.

But that isn’t the only way inside. How do you get inside a building or a house and past the security system? 

You get invited.
Someone who already belongs can walk you right in.

A connection, especially one with influence, will supersede any resume. Period.

Yes, you need to be able to explain how you can help the company in the interview.
Yes, you need to speak their language.

But you can get into the interview without being a top candidate because of who you know.

Finding these connections, getting into conversations with them, and effectively getting introductions that lead to interviews is what we do all day, every day in the Interview Accelerator. That’s why our average application-to-interview rate is over 35%. Some closer to 50%!

The job I got after my church job?
I got the interview because of multiple connections that worked there.

I had no idea how to explain my experience.

The interviewer literally said, “Your experience is confusing,” in my first interview.

But I got the job.
Why?

Because I had advocates with influence in multiple positions in the organization who believed in me.

Bottom line for the ministry to marketplace career change. 

If you know how to write your resume for the ranking system and human readers, you have a better chance of getting interviews. If you have connections, you can bypass the security system completely and go straight to the interview.