Rejected before anyone read it

Plenty of strong applications fail for reasons that have nothing to do with the candidate. Most are mechanical, and all of them are avoidable.

The résumé did not parse

Columns, tables, text boxes and header graphics confuse résumé parsers. What reaches the recruiter is whatever survived that conversion — sometimes with your job titles merged into one line, or your dates missing. A single-column layout with real text is not a stylistic preference; it is the difference between your history being legible and not.

A screening answer ruled you out

Work authorisation, sponsorship, location and notice period are structured fields recruiters filter on before opening anything. An inconsistent or hurried answer here — saying you need sponsorship when you do not, or leaving a location field empty because it silently failed to commit — removes you from the list regardless of the rest.

You were invisible to the search

If the recruiter searched for a skill you have but described differently, you were not rejected so much as never retrieved.

You applied and then stopped

Popular roles draw hundreds of applications. Being one of them is a lottery ticket. A short, specific note to the hiring manager is the step that moves you out of the pile, and it is the step almost nobody takes.