Why You're Not Getting Interviews (Even with the Right Experience)
Why You’re Not Getting Interviews (Even with the Right Experience)
Dan Bentivenga
May 14, 2025
You’ve got the skills. You’ve done the work. You’re sending out applications. And still, nothing.
No interviews. No callbacks. Just silence.
Most job seekers assume the problem is the market. Sometimes it is. But most of the time, it’s something more controllable:
Your first impression is broken.
And in 2025, your first impression isn’t a handshake or a phone call.
It’s your resume.
It’s your LinkedIn profile.
It’s the keywords you use. The formatting you choose. The story you tell (or don’t tell).
I’ve recruited for companies across F500s in finance, healthcare, and telecom, all the way down to startups. I’ve seen brilliant engineers get ignored while average ones get interviews.
The difference? Presentation.
Let’s break it down.
1. The 7-Second Resume Scan
This isn’t a theory. This is how real recruiters review resumes.
I open your resume. I look at the job title. I scan your most recent job. I glance at your stack or tools. I move on.
You have 7 seconds. Maybe less.
If I can’t tell what you do in one glance, I don’t dig deeper. Not because I’m mean. But because I’m reviewing 200 resumes in one sitting.
If your formatting is off If your font is hard to read If you bury your strengths in dense paragraphs
You lose your shot.
Your resume is a billboard, not a journal.
Most people make it look like a novel. Hiring managers don’t have time to read novels.
2. Keyword Stuffing Doesn’t Work
Somewhere along the way, job seekers started writing for bots instead of humans.
Yes, applicant tracking systems scan for keywords. Yes, you should mention your tech stack. No, you should not list every buzzword you can think of in a skills section.
Here’s what actually happens:
You stuff your resume with every possible tool. It gets past the ATS. A real person reads it. They see React, Vue, Angular, and Svelte listed. They assume you’re a generalist. Or worse, fabricating your experience.
Just because you touched a tool once doesn’t mean it belongs on your resume.
Keep it clean. Be honest. Speak the truth of your experience, not the potential of your capabilities.
3. Bullets That Get Interviews
Bad resumes have job descriptions.
Great resumes have accomplishments.
Let me show you the difference.
BAD:
- Worked on backend APIs using Node and Express
- Participated in sprint planning and standups
- Helped migrate database to PostgreSQL
GOOD:
- Built and deployed backend APIs using Node and Express, reducing page load time by 42%
- Migrated legacy system to PostgreSQL, improving data integrity and reducing downtime by 70%
- Led sprint planning sessions and mentored two junior engineers
See the difference?
The second one tells a story. It shows ownership. It shows impact. It gets interviews.
Here’s the formula:
Action verb + What you did + Business impact
You don’t need 20 bullets. You need 5 great ones per job that prove you deliver value.
4. LinkedIn Is Not Optional
You might hate LinkedIn. That’s fine.
But if you’re on the market and your profile looks like a ghost town, you’re giving up free leverage.
Recruiters use LinkedIn filters every single day.
- We search by title
- We filter by location
- We filter by tech stack
- We filter by open to work
If your profile isn’t optimized, you will not show up. If you have no banner, no summary, no keywords in your headline, you get buried under 10,000 others.
This isn’t about being an influencer.
This is about being discoverable.
Want a simple fix?
Write a summary that sounds like this:
Senior Full Stack Engineer with 7 years of experience building scalable web applications using JavaScript, React, Node.js, and AWS. Strong focus on performance, clean architecture, and cross-functional collaboration. Most recently led a rebuild of a customer portal used by 1.2M users.
Done. One paragraph. No fluff. No cliches. Just facts.
5. The Sniff Test
After every resume review, I ask myself one question:
Would I want to speak with this person for 15 minutes?
That’s the sniff test.
If your resume passes that test, you get a call. If it doesn’t, you’re out.
It’s not always fair. But it is how the game is played.
You can win the game by doing three things right:
- Make your resume scannable in 7 seconds
- Replace fluff with measurable wins
- Make your LinkedIn work for you, not against you
TLDR
If you have the experience and still aren’t getting interviews, your first impression is the problem.
Fix your formatting. Stop writing for robots. Start writing for humans. Optimize your LinkedIn. And remember — clarity beats cleverness.
Always.