I just had a major realization about my job search that I want to share. For the past six months, I’ve submitted over 400 customized applications for various roles, but I received absolutely no callbacks. I was beginning to think the job market was just unresponsive. Last week, I decided to run my resume through an ATS scanner and discovered that it was being read as a completely blank page. It turns out that the 'aesthetic' template I purchased online, which included columns and text boxes, was causing the corporate hiring software to filter my applications out before they even reached a human. I quickly switched to a clean, single-column, ATS-friendly format and sent out 15 applications this week. Already, I have two interviews lined up for next Tuesday. If you’re struggling to get responses, I highly recommend checking your resume formatting. Avoid multi-column templates or text fields, as they can confuse the ATS systems.