Glassdoor.com reported that, on average, each corporate job offer attracts 250 resumes. Of those candidates, 4 to 6 will be called for an interview, and only one will get the job. In the white paper “This Is How Google Hires Their Talent,” Kalibrr Technology Ventures reported that "every year, Google receives over one million resumes and applications. Only 4,000-6,000 applicants will be hired—that's less than a 1% hiring rate."
The ease with which job seekers can apply to jobs on any job board (such as ChurchJobsOnline.com, PastorJobs.Net, and ChristianCareerCenter.com) has been beneficial and challenging for recruiters and applicants alike. Applicants have the tough job of finding a way to stand out from the crowd behind a computer screen, and employers can be overwhelmed with many resumes from applicants who are not qualified for the jobs being promoted online.
Many churches and ministries significantly smaller than Google will receive more than 100 resumes for posted church jobs and pastor positions, such as senior pastors, youth ministers, worship leaders, house parents, teachers, etc. Studies show that resumes only receive 6-30 seconds from an employer, making the format and content within a resume key to recruiters and search committees choosing your resume.
What is an Applicant Tracking System (ATS)?
Many resumes are initially not seen by human eyes but are reviewed by an applicant tracking system that scans for keywords to determine if your resume proceeds to the next step to be reviewed by a hiring team or goes into the "No" pile. Employers, including many churches and ministries, use an ATS to screen resumes to screen potential candidates. This can save the church search committee, recruiter, or hiring manager a lot of time as they do not need to view resumes that do not describe a baseline of skills and experiences required for the job.
Pastor jobs, church jobs, and ministry openings require specific skill sets that need to be highlighted on a resume for the applicant tracking system to pick up. The ATS system works by screening out and rejecting resumes submitted that do not have the desired qualifications for the job. Even if a resume has the needed skills and experiences, an ATS system can reject resumes formatted with columns and tables as the system has a specific way of analyzing resumes. Creating an "ATS-friendly" resume ensures that most ATS systems recognize your skills for the ministry jobs that interest you.
What is an Applicant Tracking System-Friendly Resume?
An applicant-tracking system-friendly resume is tailored to the unique software resume-reviewing system known as the applicant tracking system. A few ways to do so include including the required skills more than once in a resume, creating a Summary of Qualifications, using correct formatting, and submitting it in the proper file format.
Even if the employer does not use an applicant tracking system, you want to tailor your resume to the job description's skills, knowledge, and experience. Customizing your resume for each ministry job you apply for is critical for showcasing how you can meet an employer's needs.
This article will walk you through the step-by-step process of creating an applicant-tracking system-friendly resume. It may sound like a lot of work, but customizing your resume for church, pastor, and ministry jobs is not difficult. By following the steps below, you increase your chances of getting your resume through applicant tracking systems and standing out to ministry employers.
How do you Develop an Applicant Tracking System-Friendly Resume?
1. Analyze the skills of the church jobs that are of interest.
Review the job postings that interest you, identifying three key skill groups: transferable, personal, and content skills.
Transferable skills can transfer from one job or career to another. When you describe your job duties, you are expressing your transferable skills. For example, when analyzing pastor jobs, you will typically see transferable skills such as preaching, teaching, leading, shepherding, and managing. A resume should emphasize these skills as you describe your work experience.
Personal skills represent aspects of your personality. Unlike transferable skills, which develop over time, personal skills are more inborn. Examples of personal skills for a pastor could include being warm, friendly, curious, empathetic, patient, self-controlled, encouraging, insightful, humble, and passionate. Your personal skills can help you stand out from other candidates during the hiring process.
While a church may be willing to teach an employee a new transferable skill or knowledge, they generally will not take the time to train someone in developing a needed personal skill, if that is even possible. Churches and other ministries need candidates who already have the required personal skills, so it makes sense to highlight applicable personal skills on your resume.
Content skills are knowledge areas needed for specific pastor, church, and ministry jobs. For example, a church accountant would need content skills such as accounts payable, payroll, figuring taxes, and using computer accounting programs. A pastor would need to have content skills such as knowledge of the Bible, theology, church history, evangelism, and others.
When you are enthusiastic about the content skills you use at work, you will find more meaning in your career, mainly if your content skills help you meet the needs of the world you are passionate about.
2. Incorporate your key transferable, personal, and content skills into a Summary of Qualifications.
To stand out from other applicants, create a keyword-rich Summary of Qualifications on your resume relevant to the specific job posting to stand out. Your Summary of Qualifications is where you can tailor your resume in five minutes or less. Having a Summary of Qualifications at the top of your resume also positions your skills where applicant tracking system software is more likely to pick each relevant resume keyword. You can create a short paragraph highlighting your relevant skills or lay it out with bullet points at the top of your resume.
Each statement in your Summary of Qualifications should showcase your most impressive work-related skills and accomplishments. If applying to various church and pastor jobs, you may need to make your bullet points relevant to each job and create a different summary. Below is an example for a pastor's job.
SUMMARY OF QUALIFICATIONS
• More than eight years of ministry and pastoral leadership experience as a missionary, Children’s Ministry Director, and Associate Pastor.
• Strong motivation and enthusiasm for growing members as disciples and showing the love of Jesus to the community and world at large.
• Passionate about using communication, biblical teaching, and preaching gifts to build up the Body of Christ.
• Vision and passion for community service, evangelism, and global outreach.
• Proven organizational, leadership, and interpersonal skills; able to motivate and train staff members to excel in using their gifts as servant leaders.
• Strong ability to create compelling visions and goals for church growth and outreach.
• Creative, self-motivated, patient, adventurous, warm, friendly leader sold out to Jesus Christ.t t
3. Use the key required skills in your resume more than once.
The best practice is to use the most important keywords more than once, if possible. If you have various skills, customize each on your resume to the specific church jobs you are applying to, ensuring the ATS software will pick up your resume. Analyze the job posting for the skills recruiters and ATS software systems are looking for, then incorporate those skills within your resume as much as possible. Typically, ATS software systems tally points at every mention of a critical asset.
4. Prove your skills.
Proving your skills (whether transferable, personal, or content skills) means giving examples of how you have successfully used key skills in the past and demonstrating how your experience will transfer to the current job opening. Studies have found that a significant reason for extended unemployment is that 80% of job applicants cannot prove their top ten skills to a prospective employer. In other words, they cannot communicate effectively enough to do the job.
Whenever possible, quantify your achievements using metrics and numbers. Drawing attention to quantifiable achievements shows church search committees and recruiters the results you have achieved with your skills. Church, ministry, and pastor jobs require unique skills that you can highlight with quantifiable achievements. Here are two examples:
• Teach and preach the Bible to a congregation of 600, with the ability to inspire, encourage, exhort, and make messages relevant.
• Speak at churches across America to challenge and train Christians related to missions and reaching Muslims. Several churches have reported a 20-35% increase in their outreach to the Muslim community in their community.
5. Choose the correct file format
Unless the employer specifies what file format to use (PDF or Word doc), there are pros and cons related to which file format is best for resumes. Saving and sending a PDF version of your resume will keep the formatting intact. In other words, how you see your resume will also be how the employer views it. PDFs, however, may not be compatible with some applicant tracking software systems. On the other hand, while Word docs are typically more accurately analyzed by ATS software, there can be compatibility issues with different Microsoft software versions that may alter the format of your resume. So, when deciding what file format to use, you may want to send a PDF and a Word doc version if their application process allows you to do this. If it does not allow this, sending a Word doc version is best.
You can find a Word doc template in the article 14 Keys to Writing a Winning Resume For Church Jobs and Ministry Openings.
6. Format your resume to be read by an applicant tracking system.
Formatting your resume to be easily read by ATS software is similar to best practices for formatting your resume for an employer to read. For example, your name and contact information should be at the top, followed by your Summary of Qualifications, your work history (in a chronological resume), or your relevant experience (in a functional resume). You can learn more about these two styles of resumes here.
Summary
By focusing your job search on the right ministry job opportunity and custom tailoring your resume and cover letter, you have a much higher chance of being seen by an applicant tracking system as a qualified candidate. The recruiting process for ministry and church jobs is much easier to understand when considering what the employer seeks in potential candidates and how they may use applicant tracking software.
Although there may seem like many steps to ensure your resume gets successfully through an applicant tracking system, becoming a candidate for a dream ministry job is worth it. When applying to church openings and ministry jobs, highlighting relevant skills, using keywords in the job description, and creating a Summary of Qualifications are a few ways to make your resume more ATS-friendly. By following the steps in this article, you can ensure your resume for any given job listing has the best chance of success with church search committees or recruiters.
Next Steps
In addition to the steps above, you can find more help for resume writing in the article 14 Keys to Writing a Winning Resume For Church Jobs and Ministry Openings.
Not sure what type of ministry or church job your resume should target? We can help you to find work that fits your God-given design. Learn more here.
© Article copyright by Kevin Brennfleck and Kay Marie Brennfleck, ChristianCareerCenter.com, ChurchJobsOnline.com, PastorJobs.Net, ChristianJobFair.com, CareerFitTest.com and LiveYourCalling.com.