How to write an ATS friendly resume for 2023

How many of you have seen the perfect job opportunity, submitted a job application, and waited for three months to hear nothing but cricket sounds? Judging by all of those raised hands, there are too many. When you are on a job search, sending out your resume to companies will sometimes feel like shoving your application into a black hole, never to be seen again by a human eye. Most of the time, that’s what really happens. A human eye never sees your resume. Why? Because your resume isn’t ATS-friendly.

What is an Applicant Tracking System (ATS)?

Applicant Tracking Systems are bots used by employers to filter through the massive number of resumes they receive per job advertisement. ATSs collect, sort, scan, and rank the job applications sent in for a job opening to make things easier for hiring managers. Today, 99% of large organizations use ATSs to screen candidates. However, almost 75% of resumes fail the ATS test and are never seen by a human eye.

What are the qualities of a high-risk resume?

Do you feel that your resume might not be ATS-friendly? If you’ve been rejected by multiple companies in your job hunt, it probably is. Here are 5 signs that your resume isn’t ATS-compliant:

• You have included contact information or other important info in the header or footer
• Your resume does not use keywords from the job description
• You’ve used some fancy resume template from the internet that usually gets scrambled by the ATS
• Your resume is in an incompatible file type for the ATS
• Your resume includes graphics and charts that are totally unreadable by the ATS

So, how can you write an ATS-friendly resume?

Writing an ATS-friendly resume isn’t hard once you have figured out the ATS compliance rules. Here are some resume tips to get you started:

1. First, select the right file type for your resume

PDF, though we use it a lot, isn’t the most ATS-friendly file type for a resume. An MS Word document in the .doc or .docx format works best with an ATS. Plain text tiles are also incredibly ATS-friendly. But you will have very limited design and formatting options if you create a .txt resume. Our best advice? Create an MS Word resume template for yourself.

2. Avoid adding important info to the header or footer

ATSs aren’t very good at reading info that is in the header or footer sections of the Word doc. Did you know that ATSs fail to identify the contact details of candidates 25% of the time because those are stored in the header? Whenever you create a resume, display information outside of the header and footer to avoid losing important resume data during parsing.

3. Add a lot of keywords from the job description

The one-size-fits-all resume is an urban myth. You must always tailor your resume to the job description if you want to score an interview. Before you start customizing your resume for the job, go through the job description with a highlighter. Highlight all the keywords the employer has used. Now, you can incorporate these terms into the key skills section, work experience section, and accomplishments section of your resume. Take care to have the terms repeated twice or thrice through your resume because ATSs also look for frequency.

4. Remove images, charts, and other graphics

Yes, you do want to wow a human reader with a cool resume. But you will never get the chance to if you add graphics to the resume you submit to the ATS first. Instead, create a resume without graphics and other unnecessary elements for the job applications. You can create an attractive version of your resume to take along to interviews.

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