It's a Trap: What Admiral Ackbar Can Teach You About Your International Job Search
How to Move Abroad: Your Guide to Start Living Abroad
The episode addresses the widespread frustration of receiving zero callbacks when applying for jobs abroad, identifying the hidden barrier as the Applicant
Key takeaways
- International ATS software uses distinct parsing behaviors and regional conventions that differ significantly from U.S. platforms like Workday or Greenhouse.
- Complex resume layouts featuring columns, text boxes, graphics, or sidebars frequently cause ATS parsers to misread data or reject the file entirely.
Main topics
- international job search
- Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS)
Notable quotes
You walked into a trap called ATS — Applicant Tracking System — the software that sits between your resume and an actual human being who could hire you.
Conclusion
By treating resume submission as a technical optimization problem rath
Transcript preview
Speaker 2 (0:00) Thank you. Speaker 2 (0:03) Hi there, I'm Mistel Godlewski, your emotional support American abroad, and I've moved abroad three times in the last 12 years. This is how to move abroad. For people who don't need more inspiration, they need an actual decision and a checklist. Each week, I cut through the internet noise and walk you through the stuff that actually decides whether this happens or not. Every episode ends with a weekly task because collecting information isn't progress and someday isn't a strategy. Let's get into it. Speaker 1 (0:37) It's a trap. All right, not my words, but pretend you can hear that in Admiral Akbar's voice and not mine, especially my nasally sick voice, but also absolutely completely 100 % right now, your international job application process. And I want to say this with all the love I have for you in the world, but we've got to stop doing this because here's what's happening. You are looking at a job posting and thinking, oh my gosh, this is perfect. The role, the company, the location, everything lines up. You start looking at your resume. You write out that cover letter. You hit submit and you wait. And then nothing. So you apply again. You're like, cool, maybe it wasn't the right one. Let's do a different company. Same country, similar role. I am qualified for this. And still nothing. So you apply again and again and again and you start wondering, honestly, what the F is wrong with me? Why is nobody responding? Am I even qualified for the roles that I'm applying for? I mean, my God, I just applied for an entry-level role and I have 10 years of experience. Why am I not getting any callbacks? Is this just completely impossible? I'm giving up and I'm accepting that moving abroad is never going to happen. This is a trap. And once I tell you what the trap is, you're going to look back at every application you've ever submitted and understand likely exactly what happened. The trap is called the ATS, the Applicant Tracking System. It's probably something that you've heard of in the context of the U.S. before, and so I want to kind of go into a little bit of why it's different abroad. It is the software that sits between your resume and an actual human being who could hire you. And it's not reading your resume in the same way a person would. It's not sitting there going, oh,