How to Make a Resume that Beats Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS)

How to Make a Resume that Beats Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) How to Make a Resume that Beats Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) September 29, 2014 In 2020, most companies are using resume-reading robots called applicant tracking systems (ATS) to streamline hiring processes. With only 25% of applications passing the test, its crucial that you follow these tips to optimize your resume for ATS. Make a Resume in Minutes You feel crushed â€" you think some hiring manager on the other end actually read through the entirety of your resume and concluded that you weren’t qualified for the job. But heres the twist â€" chances are, no human has even laid eyes on your application. The truth? You were probably rejected by a resume-reading robot called an applicant tracking system (ATS). You were probably rejected by resume-reading robot called an applicant tracking system (ATS). Welcome to the 21st century. Large and even medium-sized firms are using ATS to deal with the hundreds, if not thousands of applicants who are applying to the same positions every day. This resume-reading software allows these companies to automate, streamline, and manage the hiring process. Why  are companies allowing robots  to make human resource decisions? Its all about speed. Going through resumes to screen applicants is tedious. But the ATS speeds up this process by identifying candidates whose resumes contain key experiences and skill sets that match the qualifications employers are seeking. According to a popular study conducted by search services provider Preptel, as many  as 75% of the candidates don’t make it past the ATS screening. It may seem brutal, but this screening process does the job of whittling down a cumbersome applicant pool into just a handful of applicants that the human hiring managers can review more closely. Heres the takeaway for living in the age of resume-reading robots â€" a well-crafted, ATS friendly resume is critical to a successful job hunt. What Does This Mean for You? Heres the takeaway for living in the age of resume-reading robots â€" a well-crafted, ATS-friendly resume is critical to a successful job hunt. Qualified candidates that fail to make an ATS-friendly resume will be rejected, period. After combing the web and consulting some of our in-house experts at Resume Genius, we zero in on the four most common reasons why resumes of even the most qualified candidates fail to pass screening. Dont Make Your Resume Unreadable to Applicant Tracking Systems Warning: the ATS will fail to read your artistic additions to your resume. Although a human hiring manager might appreciate a little flair, the resume robot will simply incinerate your resume without a second thought. Fixability: Easy It would be a shame for your resume to get screened out because the ATS is unable to read it. Basic rule of thumb: keep your fonts and formatting simple. Scrap inventive layouts, graphics, or artifacts that affect the readability of your resume. Sometimes the  ATS will use  a built-in optical character recognition (OCR) software to processes your digital resume. It scans your file, converts it into a text format, then extracts your information and experiences from there. While the ATS is getting better at reading PDF files, it’s still safer to feed the system a Word or Text file. Do away with any adjusted spacing, newsletter formatting, lines. Go with the clean, standard fonts like Arial, Verdana, and Times New Roman. Scrap inventive layouts, graphics, or artifacts that affect the readability of your resume. Use Common Section Headings Applicant Tracking System software is built to sort your experiences based on the resumes section headings. If youve written a different heading than normal â€" say Major Abilities instead of Skills, it will skip over that section if it is unable to determine what your heading stands for, the CIO reports. Fixability: Easy People like to get creative with headings, thinking that it will help their resume stand out. Unfortunately, unconventional headings can actually hurt it. Help the software do its job. Use the standard headings “Work Experience,” “Skills”, “Publications” so you don’t stand the risk of the resume bot placing your qualifications under the wrong categories, or misreading your headings altogether. Include Targeted Keywords By now, youve formatted your resume properly, and used normal headings. Heres the meat of how an ATS actually reads your resume. Its looking for targeted resume keywords. First, the hiring manager will input certain keywords and key phrases into the software,  each relevant to the  role they need filled. For example, a software company hiring manager might use these keywords: Python C++ Javascript Coded Programmed Next, the ATS software will read through each resume, and determine whether the it has enough keywords and key phrases to pass through the screening.  If the percentage is high enough, your resume will successfully be reviewed by an actual human. Fixability: Medium Your ability to use the right keywords depends on two things: Do you actually have the relevant skills, abilities, education, and work experiences? If you do have all or some from #1, doing good research and giving your resume a hard look-over will get you through the ATS How to select  keywords The best place to begin is to read  the hiring managers very own job description. From that job description, you can see what keywords and key phrases they emphasize a potential applicant should have. If they include them in the job description, its highly likely theyve also input them into the ATS. The image below contains a real example of a librarian job description, and the image next to it reflects what we believe are important keywords a librarian applicant should include on their resume: Normal Job Description Open Gallery Job Description with ATS Keywords Highlighted Open Gallery GREEN HIGHLIGHT: Keywords that are CRITICAL to getting past the ATS. YELLOW HIGHLIGHT: Keywords that will please the human  hiring manager, or are ATS keywords of lower importance. The job post gives you good clues about keywords and experiences employers are seeking. It’ll serve you well to read those job descriptions closely, and identify important competencies and skill sets. Place emphasis on these matched experiences in your resume. It’s also helpful include both specific and general keywords in the mix. ATS uses all of these keywords into certain job functions. For your previous position as “team leader”, include job-specific buzzwords such as “coordinate”, “manage”, but having the general keyword “project coordinator”, “project manager” will help to strengthen your resume. Be sure to try out our ATS-friendly resume builder software that comes with over 50,000 professionally written phrases and job-specific keywords. Dont Include Too Many Nonspecific Keywords Some have suggested hacking the resume bot by submitting two or three-page long resumes that exhaust all keywords that are relevant to the job. Thats not a good idea â€" even if it did work (it doesnt), it certainly wont impress the human hiring manager. You can’t stuff your resume with an exhaustive list of experiences and hope to game the system into thinking you’re a perfect match. ATS software ranks your candidacy based on how specifically your resume matches keywords and phrases in a job description. Some software even looks for how uniquely the work experiences you listed match the job requirements. Fixability: Medium Heres the rub â€" you can’t stuff your resume with an exhaustive list of experiences and hope to game the system into thinking you’re a perfect match. Having off-target keywords can score your resume down on relevancy. Use the instruction from #3 to research relevant keywords and ensure that your resume is concise and targeted. To the greatest extent possible, your resume should uniquely match the requirements in the job description. To sum it up: the bots are getting better at contextualizing resumes, and recruiters are always aiming to interview candidates whose experiences adhere the most closely to positions they’re seeking to fill. Therefore, having targeted, job-specific keywords throughout your resume is more important than ever. Include Industry Jargon and Abbreviations Experts suggest that adopting industry jargon or even including a company’s corporate lingo within your resume is a smart choice. If you think about it, its only logical for the hiring manager to input industry jargon and abbreviations into an ATS. Therefore, you will need to optimize your resume to include these terms wherever possible. Fortunately, this is very simple to do. Fixability:  Easy Weave relevant jargon and terminology into your resume, and spell out the abbreviations and acronyms DO NOT ever simply include an acronym or abbreviation by itself on a resume. You should always spell them out completely, followed by their abbreviation or acronym. Acronyms with  Spelled out Examples Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agent with 10+ years of experience. Optimized and purchased Pay Per Click (PPC) ads for a major software company Maintained plant operations perfect record of zero  Operation Safety Health  Administration (OSHA) recordables Tip If youre unfamiliar with a certain industrys lingo, you can  research jargon and abbreviations specific to the field, sector, or industry in which you’re seeking employment. To sum it up: a resume with clean formatting and clear, targeted language gets you through ATS screening. Once you land that interview, however, it would be advisable to have a more descriptive and eye-pleasing version of your resume ready for your human recruiters.