What’s an ATS-Friendly Resume and How Do You Make One?

What Is an ATS and How Does It Work?

An ATS is an abbreviation of “applicant tracking systems”. These systems are commonly used by companies to help recruiters automate certain hiring functions. In the past, an ATS was simply a centralized database that stored candidate information. Nowadays, these systems can do a lot more. Here are some things they can do:

For a candidate, the most important function of an ATS is its ability to read and sort through resumes.

So, how does an ATS read a resume? When you apply for a role, the system takes your uploaded resume and organizes it in a way that it understands the data. Your ATS-friendly resume and any other information you included in your application are used to create a “candidate profile”. This profile can be searched, filtered, and even ranked by the ATS.

Its ability to process resumes helps to make the applicant pool smaller – it can automatically turn down those that don’t meet the requirements of the role before a recruiter sees those applications. Typically, unqualified candidates will then hear they weren’t successful, while qualified candidates are moved forward to either a phone screening or a pre-recorded video interview.

How Can You Make Your Resume ATS-Optimized?

1. Don’t use fancy formatting (even tables can hurt your resume)

Many candidates like to get creative with their resumes in an effort to stand out. Some even pay to make their resume look like an artistic masterpiece. Unfortunately, an ATS will remove all of this, and likely before a recruiter sees it. More importantly, though, fancy formatting can cause errors in an applicant tracking system’s understanding – particularly if it's an older, less sophisticated system:

• Text in headers and footers can get lost or cause errors
• Complex tables (e.g. those with merged cells) can jumble text
• Shading or colored fonts can void out any words included in that text
• Logos (say, of previous employers) or graphics cannot be easily read by most systems
• Bullet points that use irregular characters can confuse an ATS
• Text boxes can be skipped by most systems

3. Include keywords in your resume that come up in role requirements

After an uploaded resume goes through its first screening, a recruiter or hiring manager may search for job-related keywords. This helps to identify candidates with the right skills and experience. Now, having the right keywords isn’t as simple as copying in sections of their job description. Here’s what you can do:

• Look at a variety of job openings for similar roles and determine which required skills or experience overlap.
• Requirements that show up frequently are the keywords you should try to incorporate.
• For example, if you were applying for a content writer position, and you noticed SEO was a popular requirement, you should ensure your SEO knowledge (as long as you have some) is listed on your resume.

Many popular ATSs can’t recognize the relationship between long-form words and their respective abbreviations or acronyms. This can lead to problems if a recruiter – or even the system – is searching for one version of the word. In the example above, SEO should be written as both SEO (the abbreviation) and Search Engine Optimization (the long-form) within a resume.

5. Don’t apply to jobs you definitely aren’t qualified for

Nowadays it’s really easy to apply for dozens of jobs in only a few minutes – especially with tools such as Indeed’s one-click apply. However, if you’re applying to jobs outside of your qualifications to simply try your luck or get a job faster, an ATS will stand in your way and reject your application based on your failure to meet specific keywords/criteria.

This advice isn’t to say you need to have every qualification or skill set to apply for a job. For example, if you find an awesome job that requires five years’ experience but you only have two, it’s worth applying for. Many companies like to interview candidates that have similar skill sets or transferable knowledge, so they’ll cast a wide net in their search.

ATSs Are Becoming Increasingly Popular – Don’t Miss Out on Your Dream Job!

Applicant tracking systems help recruiters to free up much-needed time and resources to help make an efficient hiring experience for candidates. To maximize your chances of landing a job interview, you have to be sure that an ATS can read your resume. By utilizing the tips above, you can be confident you’re giving yourself the best chance at getting past the first stage of the hiring process.

Once your ATS-friendly resume has made it past the first hurdle, make sure it is well-organized and easily readable by humans. The average recruiter scans a resume for about seven seconds. Make sure your most relevant work history, education and accomplishments are easy to pick up on a quick scan.

Happy job hunting!