11/02/2026
His resume was missing the keyword.
Mateo applied for a senior developer role with one of our clients. The job description asked for experience with one specific platform. Mateo had never used it.
Any automated screen would have filtered him out in seconds.
But our Subject Matter Expert didn’t stop at the keyword. She asked Mateo to walk her through a system he’d built.
Twenty minutes later, she had her answer.
He hadn’t used that platform. He had built something very similar from the ground up. He understood the architecture, the trade-offs, and why things break. The kind of depth you can’t fake, and can’t find with a keyword search.
We put him forward.
Within his first month, he was up to speed on the platform. Within a year, he became the person his team goes to when something complex needs solving.
His resume was missing the keyword. Not the skill.
That’s why technical skills are one of the three dimensions in the emergiTEL 3D Recruitment Model, alongside corporate culture and soft skills. Every candidate is screened by Subject Matter Experts who know the work, not just the vocabulary.
After two decades in recruitment, we’ve learned that great hires are never one-dimensional.
Have you ever hired someone who didn’t check every box and turned out to be exactly who you needed? We’d love to hear your story.
