Ironically, it helps to think of the HR screening process as a really dumb algorithm. The HR staffer likely has little to no understanding of how to ferret out "knowledge of algorithms," (or any other job skill, for that matter). So he defaults to a list of keywords or phrases -- interpreted very literally -- from a job description received from the hiring manager.

His internal logic is pretty much driven by two directives:

1: If a keyword or phrase is in the job description, a successful applicant MUST have it on his resume. (Word for word, preferably).

2: Anything on a candidate's resume that is not on the job description is irrelevant.

In fairness, there is some legitimate value to the HR screening process. It is a filter. A dumb filter, but a filter that the hiring manager doesn't have time to run on X hundred (or Y thousand) resumes. Some HR filters are designed to screen out resumes that don't contain the right keywords. Others are designed to select for resumes that match all the right keywords. Either way, the effect is similar. Of course, such a process can (and does) weed out a lot of very talented, very qualified people.

The trick is learning how to game the filter. The filter penalizes creative or unusual word choices. The filter flags candidates who reference someone they've met or spoken to at the company (doubly so if that person is the actual referrer). The filter rewards fidelity to the letter of the job description. Tailor your cover letter and resume accordingly.

How many more tricks will you have to employ after you get past HR to get through the job itself? Let alone have some fun and learn something new.

To that point, oftentimes bad HR is really just a scale issue. A company starts getting more resumes than its people can deal with, and so it hires HR drones just to help with the workload. And this continues. Eventually, the managers are so far removed from the day-to-day HR filter that they don't really notice how bad it's become.

It might not be an exact science, but it reflects somewhat on existing and future recruits, not to mention an indicator of corporate bureaucracy.

Some modules are used pretty much all the time (name, address, education, previous jobs and titles). Others are swapped in or out (bullet points under each job, interests if applicable, etc.). I've found that customizing the resume to fit the job is worth the extra 30 minutes of hassle to compile it.

[Note that I do not advocate making shit up. Rather, I've found that sometimes even the same bullet point, phrased two different ways, can have positive or negative outcomes at two different job openings. Or sometimes Job X considers Accomplishment A very important, but Job Y considers A irrelevant. Etc.]

(I also exploited the ability to link external CSS to make a script that tracked everyone who viewed my resume, with a reverse DNS on their IP.)

Of course, an army of lawyers put that together - is there an equivalent group to do that for technical resumes? A resume coach at the VFW wouldn't cut it...

My system to date has been very paleolithic. I keep a spreadsheet with all my bullet points, categorized by job and mapped to different Skills and Experiences (i.e., the things to be demonstrated via the bullet points). When compiling a resume, I cross-reference by job description and its keywords, skills/experiences to be shown, etc.

Then I sort of treat the process like a compilation of overlapping sets, i.e., "The job requirements are A, B, and C. I want to show that I've done X, which demonstrates A and B. Then I want to show that I've done Y, which demonstrates B. But maybe Z demonstrates B and C in a more effective way, so I'll use X and Z as my bullets." There is definitely an easier and more automated way to do all this, perhaps with databases, but I still value the organic process of poring over everything myself and gut-checking if the overall narrative flow makes sense.

As you might imagine, I played too many RPGs as a kid.

You can output various formats (HTML for web posting, PDF for distribution/printing, .DOC for recruiter's resume-uptake systems (many are based on MS Word / VBA macros). This is also handy for stripping your personal and/or contact information from resumes posted online (to keep annoying contacts down).

Viewed from outside the box: this is a classic example of a clever hack to work around the wrong part of the problem.

Fortunately that tedium is usually brief and infrequent. It's also not current.

And as you said, you want to make sure the overall narrative flow as well as the overall design of the document makes sense for the job.

It's really a cool library; at one point I was going to build a job site to help people build xml-based resumes using this library.

Then there's people who've take a slightly different career path, or chosen a job at some unknown place, yet have lots of good experience, and they're ignored because HR doesn't know what to do with them...

I've been that guy on more than one occasion. I'm a self-taught hacker, and I made the mistake of majoring in English in undergrad. While I usually look great on paper at the hiring manager stage, I have pretty spotty luck with the HR filter. To make matters worse, I've graduated twice into very unfortunate circumstances: 1) I graduated from college into a recession (post-tech-bubble-burst); 2) I graduated from grad school into an extremely deep recession.

The necessity of my circumstances has forced me to get creative with my job searches. Hence, the "modular resume" strategy I outlined in a subsequent comment. And hence the general strategy I now take on all job searches. Conventional wisdom holds that a job search is a numbers game: get your name out there as broadly as possible, and eventually, you'll catch a few things in the net. In my case, knowing that I look iffy on paper to HR drones, I know I need higher-touch tactics. Casting a wide net won't get me many fish. I need rod and reel, so to speak.

So I'll hyper-prioritize, say, 10 openings. And then I'll really drill down on them: researching the best fit, reaching out to friends of friends, doing informational interviews, networking over a fairly long term, etc. My goal is to get the hiring manager to know me before my resume hits the HR filter. I'm dead in the water if I hit the HR filter blind. (My affinity for horrible, acquatically themed metaphors knows no limits).

In fairness, a lot of these tactics could be seen as good habits in general. But for me, they were born of necessity. So in some ways, I enjoy being an unconventional candidate. It forces me to experiment, to learn, and to adapt, and to persist.

I ask this because looking for word-for-word matches etc imply a lack of unfamiliarity with the process as viewed from the other side of the table. I understand that you have been a developer previously and probably understand the technical specifics better. But my guess is be that most of these recruiters might have gone the resume-interview route for at least _some_ job; I am surprised that they don't seem to understand how hopeless their techniques are.

So instead of writing something up, the recruiter or manager googles around for "enterprise foobar developer", and copy/pastes a few pidgin english job descriptions from other places.

This arrives in HR, who then needs to translate slop into something that can be posted. Hence, the loop you described above.