Long shot: Anyone here work for Fender (Corporate)?

[ashtray]

I’ve applied to a few jobs at Fender this year, but I don’t think my resume is getting past the bots. I have a background in Accounting, and there’s a position posted that would be my dream job. 25 years Accounting experience, and 35 years playing Fender guitars, basses, and amps. (My resume doesn’t express my interest in the industry or the company.)

If anyone could bump my resume past the bots to the recruiter, it would be massively appreciated! I’d love to discuss with the recruiter how not only am I a great fit for the position, but also my background with Fender instruments, and how much a job at the company would mean to me.

 

[red_rhino]

(My resume doesn’t express my interest in the industry or the company.)

I’d love to discuss with the recruiter how not only am I a great fit for the position, but also my background with Fender instruments, and how much a job at the company would mean to me.

It sounds like your interest and passion would be relevant information for a recruiter or hiring manager. After all, a common interview question is "Why do you want to work here?" Perhaps you should express your interest, either in the resume itself or a cover letter (if that's still a thing these days) or if there's a way to add a notation via the submission portal. Maybe a phrase like "Hands-on experience with Fender products" would get picked up by the bot.

 

[The Ruiner]

I’ve applied to a few jobs at Fender this year, but I don’t think my resume is getting past the bots. I have a background in Accounting, and there’s a position posted that would be my dream job. 25 years Accounting experience, and 35 years playing Fender guitars, basses, and amps. (My resume doesn’t express my interest in the industry or the company.)

If anyone could bump my resume past the bots to the recruiter, it would be massively appreciated! I’d love to discuss with the recruiter how not only am I a great fit for the position, but also my background with Fender instruments, and how much a job at the company would mean to me.

Hi, I dont work for Fender, but when job hunting in general, I have had way more luck using a recruiter to get into companies I was targeting. For example, I have applied for a position at a company that seemed like a perfect fit, but never heard back, then went through a recruiter for the same exact job at the same company, and they got back quickly and enthusiastically. A lot of hiring managers, from what I can tell, just feel it's safer/easier to use a recruiter who pre-vets candidates. So if you can find out who actively recruits for Fender, maybe that's a way in.

In any case best of luck!

 

[sikamikanico]

Yes, tailor your resume for the application. Whether bots or humans, your piece of paper (or pixels) has to stand out somehow.

That said, don’t assume that your experience with the instruments is an asset. It’s your dream job, but are you their dream employee?

Plus, you know, you may become the vilified “beancounter” that made Fender suck can you live with that possibility?

 

[FullumMusic]

In this day and age, every company wants your cover letter and resume specifically re-written to look like the job they're offering is your dream job and the only job you ever wanted, with the exact keywords/buzzwords the bots are filtering for injected into it. (Do that for every position you apply to in every company you apply to.)

 

[InhumanResource]

I’ve applied to a few jobs at Fender this year, but I don’t think my resume is getting past the bots. I have a background in Accounting, and there’s a position posted that would be my dream job. 25 years Accounting experience, and 35 years playing Fender guitars, basses, and amps. (My resume doesn’t express my interest in the industry or the company.)

If anyone could bump my resume past the bots to the recruiter, it would be massively appreciated! I’d love to discuss with the recruiter how not only am I a great fit for the position, but also my background with Fender instruments, and how much a job at the company would mean to me.

Only tangentially related, but generally there aren’t “bots” screening resumes. People do that. There’s a lot of misinformation flying around online about how to “beat the ATS” and most of it is nonsense.

A good tactic is to network your way in like you are trying to do now.

 

[InhumanResource]

In this day and age, every company wants your cover letter and resume specifically re-written to look like the job they're offering is your dream job and the only job you ever wanted, with the exact keywords/buzzwords the bots are filtering for injected into it. (Do that for every position you apply to in every company you apply to.)

There’s no bots, friend. People are making the decision whether someone moves forward or not. There are AI tools that try and help, but they aren’t widely deployed in my experience.

 

[Shenron]

I can't help you but I wish you good luck!!

In this day and age, every company wants your cover letter and resume specifically re-written to look like the job they're offering is your dream job and the only job you ever wanted, with the exact keywords/buzzwords the bots are filtering for injected into it. (Do that for every position you apply to in every company you apply to.)

Definitely do this, tailor your CV and applications letter to them but *be honest* if you want to stay there.

I know some people who are exceptionally good at getting hired, both at getting their applications answered and to win at job interviews. Then once in, they start looking for the next job and jump off within a year. They never work.

 

[Gervais Cote]

On top of tailoring your resume, I would try to attend as many events they are involved with as you can. This can be open house, plant visits or fundraising activities.

 

[JumboJett35]

I would suggest a time machine and going back to a better economy. Nobody is actually hiring anymore. You just said admitted it in your post about AI looking over the resume. Only a matter of time before a big Corp like Fender implements it fully and making the human hands, obsolete.

P.S. Not all that glitters is gold. Never meet your heroes.

 

[john_g]

See, you shouldve had your cover letter text in the shape of a bass.

 

[DangYankee]

Not an employee, but I have made it pretty far in their interview process simply through their online portal. Landed a virtual interview with HR for vetting, progressed to a virtual interview with the hiring manager a few days later, which progressed to a virtual interview with the hiring manager and 3 members of the team I would have been joining.

They explicitly stated my resume alone (while impressive) wouldn't have caught their attention. They said the main reason they wanted to speak with me was because of the unique/Intriguing cover letter I wrote. I basically wrote a half fictional fantasy-adventure short story (LOTR inspired, but backwards) detailing my escape from the dungeonous factory I was employed by to the paradise of Fender. Apparently it was passed around the office and they all basically said "we gotta meet this guy".

All said and done, I ended up getting turned away after the 3rd interview. I was still early in my career and admittedly lacked some of the more technical experience they were looking for.

Long story short: It's definitely possible to land interviews with Fender through the online portal. A well written cover letter is CRITICAL to get their attention.

 

[InhumanResource]

I would suggest a time machine and going back to a better economy. Nobody is actually hiring anymore. You just said admitted it in your post about AI looking over the resume. Only a matter of time before a big Corp like Fender implements it fully and making the human hands, obsolete.

P.S. Not all that glitters is gold. Never meet your heroes.

Plenty of people are hiring or I would be out of a job. There’s no AI rejecting your resume.

 

[EddiePlaysBass]

As a part-time recruiter, definitely tailor your resume AND cover letter to this specific job.

I have limited experience in this field, but I still manage to easily weed out the "templates" versus the cover letters that are written specifically for our vacancies.

And for the love of god, don't let ChatGTP write your cover letter. Do it yourself. And write a d*mned cover letter. Seriously.

 

[InhumanResource]

Not an employee, but I have made it pretty far in their interview process simply through their online portal. Landed a virtual interview with HR for vetting, progressed to a virtual interview with the hiring manager a few days later, which progressed to a virtual interview with the hiring manager and 3 members of the team I would have been joining.

They explicitly stated my resume alone (while impressive) wouldn't have caught their attention. The main reason they gave me a shot was because of the unique/Intriguing cover letter I wrote. I basically wrote a half fictional fantasy-adventure short story (LOTR inspired, but backwards) detailing my escape from the dungeonous factory I was employed by to the paradise of Fender.

All said and done, I ended up getting turned away after the 3rd interview. I was still early in my career and admittedly lacked some of the more technical experience they were looking for.

Long story short: It's definitely possible to land interviews with Fender through the online portal. A well written cover letter is CRITICAL to get their attention.

This is awesome!

 

[FullumMusic]

There’s no bots, friend. People are making the decision whether someone moves forward or not. There are AI tools that try and help, but they aren’t widely deployed in my experience.

The "bot's" could be as simple as HR people doing ctrl-F and seeing how many keywords & buzzwords are hit, without actually reading anything (because they really don't understand any of the skills or technologies they're hiring for because they're HR, so they search keywords.)

Usually, though, there is filtering software being deployed. Humans aren't reading through thousands of applications for a single position, for every position they have available. And depending on the company and field, they are literally getting thousands of applications per position.

Companies are using Applicant Tracking Systems. Hiring websites like Indeed and LinkedIn have pre-filtering abilities on top of that, so your application might not even get to the company's filtering systems. I'm not even talking about complex AI "tools" that are corrupting every other aspect of internet life. I'm talking about basic software bots that weed people. I know people in companies who do hiring; i know a recruiter who works with hiring managers and HRs for companies. They all have told me companies almost universally use software to filter out applicants.

There's this gem of a story that happened recently.
Companies don't read hundreds or thousands of cover letters, resumes, and applications. They use software to do it for them to get rid of as many as possible. Then the humans who do eventually read it further down the line want your cover letter and resume completely reworked to look like it's the only job you've applied to, because it's the only job you've ever wanted. (multiply all that work of rewriting your cover letter & resume by all the dozens or hundreds of jobs you're applying to.)

It's been like this for at least 10-15 years. Which is extra annoying because every time i'm looking for a job in that time, i waste countless hours of my life reworking my cover letter and resume for every single of a few hundred applications, plus putting the same exact info that's on my resume into their application page, only to 90% of the time, to get a job through someone i know.

 

[InhumanResource]

The "bot's" could be as simple as HR people doing ctrl-F and seeing how many keywords & buzzwords are hit, without actually reading anything (because they really don't understand any of the skills or technologies they're hiring for because they're HR, so they search keywords.) Or there is filtering software being deployed. Humans aren't reading through thousands of applications for a single position, for every position they have available. And depending on the company and field, they are literally getting thousands of applications per position.

Companies are using Applicant Tracking Systems. Hiring websites like Indeed and LinkedIn have pre-filtering abilities on top of that, so your application might not even get to the company's filtering systems. I'm not even talking about complex AI "tools" that are corrupting every other aspect of internet life. I'm talking about basic software bots that weed people. I know people in companies who do hiring; i know a recruiter who works with hiring managers and HRs for companies. They all have told me companies almost universally use software to filter out applicants.

There's this gem of a story that happened recently.
Companies don't read hundreds or thousands of cover letters, resumes, and applications. They use software to do it for them to get rid of as many as possible. Then the humans who do eventually read it further down the line want your cover letter and resume completely reworked to look like it's the only job you've applied to, because it's the only job you've ever wanted. (multiply all that work of rewriting your cover letter & resume times all the dozens or hundreds of jobs you're applying to.)

It's been like this for at least 10-15 years. Which is extra annoying because every time i'm looking for a job in that time, i waste countless hours of my life reworking my cover letter and resume for every single of a few hundred applications, plus putting the same exact info that's on my resume into their application page, only to 90% of the time, to get a job through someone i know.

I’ve been working in, with, and deploying ATS’s for about fifteen years. The software filtering really isn’t what you think it is, people are ultimately reading and deciding. Yes, some of them aren’t great at their jobs and do a little ctrl F action, but in general there is an enormous amount of misinformation about how these things work. That’s why I replied to the thread, I’m neck deep in this stuff and like to try and help resolve the misconceptions.

Completely agree that networking/having a connection is the fastest path in.

Just read that ATS article and it’s a little silly. Most resumes don’t make it to a hiring manager because it’s literally a recruiter's job to screen them and reject the ones that don’t qualify. It’s always good to tailor your resume to show the content that is relevant to the job, but not because some mean piece of software is looking to reject you.

 

[Hillie]

I started a new job a few months ago. I work in tech/semiconductors and have about 20 years of experience. From what it looks like, the automated resume systems that drop your stuff on some unsuspecting person's pile of work, seem to not work, especially with bigger companies. Connections, connections, connections. Even external recruiters have worked better. The only companies I got some interaction with were the ones where I knew somebody who got in touch with the recruiting staff or hiring manager. The ones where I just went through the system basically just flat out ghosted me, without any message. Even roles where I would be a great fit and had a tailored cover letter. In my line of work it's all BS, get someone to get your resume in front of a hiring manager.

 

[FullumMusic]

I’ve been working in, with, and deploying ATS’s for about fifteen years. The software filtering really isn’t what you think it is, people are ultimately reading and deciding. Yes, some of them aren’t great at their jobs and do a little ctrl F action, but in general there is an enormous amount of misinformation about how these things work. That’s why I replied to the thread, I’m neck deep in this stuff and like to try and help resolve the misconceptions.

Completely agree that networking/having a connection is the fastest path in.

Just read that ATS article and it’s a little silly. Most resumes don’t make it to a hiring manager because it’s literally a recruiter's job to screen them and reject the ones that don’t qualify. It’s always good to tailor your resume to show the content that is relevant to the job, but not because some mean piece of software is looking to reject you.

It's not that the software is mean. It's software. It's dumb. It just does what it's told by humans who are overloaded with more applications than they could ever possibly sort through.

Obviously if you're working in the field you know way more about it than i do. But i can't discount what the other people i know in the industry have told me, and the absolute futility of searching for jobs that i've experienced in the past 15 years. It's really one of the most infuriating things. Recently had surgery on my sinuses. Recovering from that surgery was more enjoyable than job hunting. There's a long list of miserable things that, given the option, would choose over applying to jobs if they meant i could skip that part of the process.

Clearly i have a chip on my shoulder about this, and i'll shut up now because i genuinely don't want to sit here complaining about job hunting, especially since i have a job i really like, in music technology, that i got through a slightly arcane string of people in my personal network. Complaining online any more than i have isn't a good look and i'm in too good a mood for it.

 

[micguy]

(My resume doesn’t express my interest in the industry or the company.)

I spent my entire career at Shure - another company in the industry. I hired a lot of folks, and although you may not want to have the fact that you're a musician on your resume if you're applying at a big accounting firm, you definitely should have that on your resume (and cover letter) when you send it to Fender.

In my case, I was an Engineer, and when looking for folks to hire, I wanted people that had some skin in the game - something besides there being a paycheck. When I was asked by an HR person about my preference for musicians, I explained that, and they bought in - they went looking for musicians (who were also qualified for the other parts of the job). The inside joke was that our quotas included not only job skills, but what instrument you played (we need a saxophonist!!!). We ended up with a buttload of musicians in our company - the entertainment at our Christmas party (and at multiple summer parties) was ad hoc bands from the company - even with 3 hours of music, it wasn't enough to get everyone there that played on stage.

Someone who's passion is embodied in what the company does is a very valuable thing. Don't hide that you're a musician! Put your picture on your resume, with you holding a bass or guitar in the picture - make it obvious.

And yes, there's almost certainly a person screening resumes. You want yours to stick out to a human. - who is likely another musician.