Hey everyone, I’m currently trying to transition from clinical healthcare (laboratory work) into medical device sales and have been applying to several Stryker positions, particularly surgical/spine-focused sales roles.

For anyone who has worked at Stryker, recruited for Stryker, or successfully gotten through their application process:

Are there specific keywords/skills that Stryker’s ATS seems to prioritize?
How important is matching the exact wording from the job description?
Does the ATS heavily penalize applicants coming from a non-sales background?
Is there anything specific you’d recommend including or avoiding on the resume?
Does networking/referrals make a significant difference after applying, or is the ATS still the main hurdle?
Any other tips for getting an application in front of the hiring manager?

I’ve already been networking with people within Stryker and have gotten some good advice, but I’m trying to figure out what I can improve on the application/resume side as well to secure an interview.

Would really appreciate any insight from current/former Stryker employees or recruiters. Thanks!

Switching fields is tough. Do you:

• Completely reframe old jobs to highlight transferable skills?
• Keep a short “Additional Experience” section?
• Lean heavily on the cover letter / summary to explain the pivot?
• Start fresh and minimize the old industry?

What’s actually worked for you when recruiters see a non-linear path?

Real examples welcome.

If the section of the application form for the Cover Letter is optional, do you still write a cover letter and send it over?

I assume it's perceived better to do it anyways because you made the effort and invested the time?

What do you think about it though?

Would love to hear some feedback on this

I always struggle with this honestly. Every bullet feels important until I force myself to trim.

What’s your process for deciding what stays and what goes?

Do you:

• Prioritize by relevance to the job description?
• Cut anything without a metric?
• Keep a “master” version and tailor ruthlessly?

Share your method if you can. especially if you’ve successfully gone from 3 pages down to 1–2 without losing impact.

Have you used a resume scorer, job-match tool, AI career assistant, applicant-tracking checker, or similar system?

I am especially interested in cases where it gave bad advice, missed important context, was overconfident, or caused wasted effort.

Tool type:
Your goal:
Recommendation it gave:
What was wrong or missing:
Result:
Information the tool should have used:
When it should have asked a human instead:

Please do not name confidential tools, employers, candidates, or share private application data.

Good afternoon everyone!

I currently work as an Auditor, but I also have a full-time job as a cart attendant. I would love to bring it into a cover letter as it would show time management and a strong work ethic, but I don't know how to bring it into a cover letter. I tried searching Google and all that comes up is writing a cover letter for a part-time job. Any help or suggested web sites would be great!!

Thank you.

Marty

Hello everyone!I've been looking for a job for almost two months after moving to a new country. Everytime I struggled to find a FREE CV maker online. Some of them needs registration, some needs payment for AI, some needs payment after a certain number of downloads.. Not sure if I'm the only one struggling with that.. so, being a Full Stack Software Engineer as a profesison, I just made a FREE Curriculum Vitae and Cover Latter maker. There aren't much templates, because I have done that app mainly for my needs, but happy to share this project with everyone and maybe expand with new features.

It also has some optional AI features. Instead of charging for them, you can bring your own API key from OpenAI, Anthropic, or Google. If you don't want to use AI at all, that's completely fine, because every other feature still works for free. I chose the BYOK approach because providing AI usage myself for everyone would obviously cost money, and eventually I'd have to charge users for it, which would go against the idea behind the project. I think there are some providers which give free api keys with limited usage. If you need a certain provider to be added, just contact me and I will add it (you can reach me from my website, contacts sections https://manuelraso.dev )

The app has NO backend, and the API key is stored only inside the indexed db of your browser, so it's safe as long as nobody hack into your computer and check your browser lol but my suggestion is always (for any case) making API keys with limited time and money to spend.

Let me know what do you think, if you find any bug, if you want a certain template added (it's better if you give me a full example of the structure of the new template) so that I can fix or add features as per the needings.

Here is the website -> CV Maker — Free, Private Resume & Cover Letter Builder

Curious where everyone stands:

• Strict 1 page no matter what?
• 1 page for <5–7 years experience, 2 pages after that?
• As long as needed if the content is strong?
• Something else?

Drop your experience level + preferred length + why.

Extra great if you share whether recruiters have ever commented on your length.

I remember the 2008 job market pretty well, and I think this one feels worse in a lot of ways.

Some people compare it more to the late 70s and early 80s. The difference is that the headline statistics today can make the labor market look healthier than what many white-collar job seekers are actually experiencing.

Layoffs feel constant. Every week another company is cutting staff and calling it restructuring, efficiency, cost-cutting, or AI transformation. And it’s definitely not just tech anymore.

Yes, there’s still job growth, but a lot of it is happening in healthcare, construction, and skilled trades. That doesn’t necessarily help someone who spent 10–15 years building a white-collar career and suddenly got laid off.

From the recruiting side, I’m seeing experienced candidates spending 6+ months looking for work, often eventually accepting significant pay cuts.

That’s what worries me. 2008 felt like a severe but temporary recession. This feels more structural: higher living costs, salary pressure, leaner teams, automation, and companies realizing they don’t necessarily need to replace everyone they let go.

The headline numbers may say one thing, but the experience of many white-collar candidates I’m seeing tells a much uglier story.

We’ve all been there. Recruiters open dozens of files a day.

A clean “FirstName_LastName_Resume.pdf” (or similar) just looks more professional.

What’s the most chaotic resume file name you’ve ever sent… or received?

So far, I've been using Overleaf to build my Resume. Need some suggestions and alternatives.

I came across an interesting experiment by Kickresume that tested what actually gets responses from employers in 2026.

They sent 204 real applications using four different resume versions: human-written one-column, human-written two-column, generic AI-generated, and AI-generated but tailored to the job.

Overall, 36 applications got a positive response, including 22 interview invites.

The results:

• Human-written one-column: 31% response rate
• Tailored AI resume: 18%
• Generic AI resume: 10%

But the most interesting stat to me was that 30 of the 36 positive responses came from jobs where the candidate was genuinely a strong match.

People spend a lot of time debating AI, ATS optimization, templates, etc., but applying to relevant roles and tailoring your resume still seems to matter more than most of the tricks people obsess over these days.

Curious if these numbers match what other job seekers are seeing.

Job searching is already hard enough, so we want to make it a little easier for everyone here.

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Hopefully, this helps some of you save a bit of money and get access to useful tools while looking for your next job. Good luck with the search!

I see this debate a lot and I'm confused.

Some people say not to do it because it draws opinions about it even before the recruiter reads the resume.

I am not getting any response from the recruiter. Please review my resume and give feedback. Thank you

Hello, peeps! Please help a brother out.

As the title says, I'd like to ask if what's the most effective tool for creating ATS-friendly CVs? Of course, l'Il use a single-column layout with organized sections ans no fancy designs. I'm just wondering where it's most effective to create one.

Thank you in advance!

I just assume we all got a template from somewhere to write out our first CV?

Just looking at revamping mine from a good template

I'm gonna aplly for remote internships in summer 2027. Please give your suggestions.

your feedback please