Beat the ATS

In this world of career development there is a lot of information and opinions about resume writing. From the job seekers perspective, this can be frustrating at times when you don’t see the results you’d such as getting interviews, call backs, and eventually getting hired. From the employers standpoint, recruiting and retaining talent seems like a never ending battle which puts pressure on talent acquisition teams to figure out strategies to get qualified people in the door as soon as possible. Because of the high demand to recruit and hire talent most organizations (not all), have adopt automated processes to keep up with the demand of hiring people needed to achieve organizational goals. In many ways this helps companies streamline recruiting processes and even vet candidates for the necessary skills. However, in many ways it hurts organizations because technology is limited in its ability to truly judge a person. Despite the pros and cons, as a job seeker, we’re still going to have to deal with the inevitable Automated Tracking System (aka ATS), and its impact on resume writing.  

How does the ATS impact you as a job seeker? Well, for most privately held companies this means that you as a potential candidate will have to articulate your knowledge, skills, abilities, and experience in a way that brings direct value to the job and organization. This means your KSA’s need to directly translate to the immediate and foreseeable need for a specific role within the company. Sounds fair enough right? Well, this turns out to be very difficult for many professionals. I’ve worked with experienced professionals who’ve been in the work force for 20 to 30 years, and it is really challenging for these type of professionals to capture their abilities into a 2 - 3 page document. On the flip side, I’ve worked with students and young professionals who are either naive to the fact that they are not the only people in the job market or just altogether lack the “know-how” articulate their abilities on a resume.  

Resume writing through the lens of the ATS is important because the reality is most people still have to apply through online systems in order to get hired for a job. It is true that networking and social capital can get you far in the job market, however, most of us still have to apply the traditional way. This means that your resume will be screened through an algorithm to that will determine if you “have what it takes” to do the job.

In order to beat the ATS here are a few things to remember:

1. Use the Job Description - The JD will give you the keywords and descriptive language that you need focus on to update your resume. Do not copy and paste content from the JD to your resume. However, lean into the projects, deliverables, goals, and responsibilities that are provided as a guide to write your resume.
2. Curate your resume - You don’t want to through all of your experience on your resume. The challenge for most people is to focus on transferable skills when writing the resume. This does take practice. But it also takes creativity. On the surface resume may all seem the same, but you will be surprise how much creativity you have when it comes to using descriptive language, formatting, section titles, etc.  
3. Keep the formatting simple - I am not anti-templates. In fact, I often use templates as a reference for resumes that I write for clients. However, the ATS has an algorithm that isn’t friendly to certain templates. Some templates are vertically formatted and some have many dynamic features. Typically you want to use a horizontally based resume. Not sure why, but we do get feedback from recruiters about why certain templates negatively impact candidates even if they have great content on their document. A general rule of thumb is to keep it simple when it comes to formatting.  

If you need help writing your resume shoo us an email at [email protected]. Visit our website to access some FREE resources including our eCourse Writing a Winning Resume. Connect with us on social media @lenorecoachingllc.