I wrote Hired by an Algorithm because hiring had quietly become a pipeline problem. Candidates still write for humans. Systems still parse for structure. The mismatch wastes people.
The book is not a cheat code for lying to machines. It is a field guide to how parsers and ranking systems behave — and how to make a resume survive contact with both algorithms and reviewers.
Parsers are not recruiters
Applicant tracking systems flatten documents into fields. Creative section headers that look clever to humans often map to “unknown” for extractors. Canonical section names — Experience, Education, Skills — are boring on purpose. Boring is parseable.
Optical and layout tricks (text boxes, multi-column puzzles, icons as headings) create extraction errors that no amount of adjective energy can fix later.
Context density beats keyword stuffing
Modern routing weighs proximity and structure, not raw keyword counts. Action verbs next to absolute metrics outperform orphaned buzzword clouds. “Reduced p99 latency 40% on checkout API” carries more signal than a comma-separated soup of every tool you once touched.
That idea shows up in my own portfolio writing and in the book’s framing: maximize context density; keep sections machine-canonical; do not fight the optical stream.
What writing the book changed in my engineering
I started treating resumes and portfolio case studies like APIs:
- Stable schema (sections, dates, roles)
- Explicit contracts (what a bullet claims)
- Testability (would a stranger extract the right employer and dates?)
Ironically, the same discipline helps technical design docs.
What the book is not
It is not permission to game identity or fabricate impact. Algorithms amplify whatever you feed them — including nonsense. The durable strategy is truthful structure: real metrics, clear ownership, parseable layout.
For recruiters reading this
If you evaluate engineers partly through portfolio writing, look for the same traits: concrete systems thinking, honest tradeoffs, and structure that respects the reader’s time. That is the through-line between the book and how I ship software.
Takeaway
Hiring pipelines reward clarity that machines can extract and humans can trust. Hired by an Algorithm exists to make that dual audience explicit. Structure is not cosmetic — it is how your work enters the system at all.