Another way for employers to say, "No thanks (loser), we don't want you"

I'm discontented. I just found out about the Bright Score. Do you know about this? You probably do. As usual, I'm the last to catch on. On the Consumer Adoption Curve, I'm slower than the slowest laggard. I mean, I don't even have a data plan! Whatever. Anyway, the Bright Score (for those of you who may not have recently considered giving up all hope of self-employment success and applying for any job within 50 miles of your home) is a score calculated by a computer algorithm that lets employers know if you are a good fit for their job opening.

As you may remember, until six months ago, I taught business courses at a for-profit career college. I held that job for almost 10 years. And you may also recall that I recently earned a doctorate in Business Administration. I say this not to brag, but to remind you of my qualifications. I get job alerts from Indeed for faculty openings around town. It would be great to teach a couple classes while I'm developing my research business, right? Makes sense to me. So, I ask you, what better job to apply for than one like the one I had: teaching business courses at a career college. Seems like a classic no-brainer to me.

Notification of an opening appeared in my email inbox. I applied. One click took me to a web interface I had not seen before, presented by a company called Bright Score. I registered, a quick, painless process, and uploaded my resume. I deleted a few skills, added a few skills... and then I searched for the faculty opening I'd seen in the alert. A message came up: Calculating your Bright Score. (Cue Jeopardy music.) Bam. Say, what? My Bright Score for the faculty job was a paltry, measly, wholly inadequate 62! Epic fail!

As a consolation prize, Bright Score kindly suggested a couple jobs where I had a fighting chance (in the low 70s): a senior graphic designer for an unnamed company and a project supply assistant at Xerox. Okaaaay. I went back to my profile and tweaked my skills some more. I took out anything to do with art and graphic design and added skills related to teaching and education. Wham! Take that, Bright Score! Click calculate.... What! 63? No way!

In disgust, I searched for any job in the metro area for which I might actually qualify. You'll never guess what Bright Score suggested for me: Admissions Rep at the same darn for-profit college. How nutty is that? And my Bright Score was 83... Not Great, but slightly better than Good. Essentially a B+. Which means I probably could get an interview, were I inclined to try.

One thing Bright Score does not tell you is how to improve your score. They do tell you it is a combination of factors. It's not about just choosing the keywords that employers want to see. In fact, Bright Score analyzes the frequency and usage of key words, along with your experience and timelines. It also takes into consideration the structure of your resume itself, for example, length, grammar and spelling, and whether or not there is an objective. But they don't offer any tangible hints, like two-page resumes are a no-no. The secret sauce is hidden, and you only get five tries per month to improve your score. Sigh. I already used up one.

I think I will create a bogus resume, full of buzz words and upload that. I can test out the parameters. What happens if I go over one page? What happens if I add more jargon? What happens if I repeat many words and phrases from the job description? Ha! I'll get you, Bright Score! Hey, wait, what am I doing? I don't want to be an Admissions Rep or a supply assistant. I just wanted to teach a couple classes, for crying out loud. Curses, blocked again! I am being funneled into a tighter and tighter path, it feels like. Self-employment seems to be the only hope for me, but I am afraid success may be a long time coming. It will come, eventually, I have no doubt. But if I'm living under a bridge—or hiding out in my mother's spare bedroom, which may possibly be worse than the bridge—I may not be around to enjoy it.

Isn't it nice, though, to know now that I'm wasting my time applying for jobs like the one I had? What a gift from the universe. I don't really want a job like the one I had. And now it looks like I won't get one. Maybe there is a god.