If you submit your resume through an ATS, (applicant tracking system – a lot of companies use them), you have less than 30% chance of a human seeing it. Most employers use applicant tracking software that breaks your resume down and maps it into the ATS database and scores you based on keyword matching to the job description.
There are several things that can help or prevent you from scoring well.
- Keep the graphics simple and eliminate images like borders, shading, shadows, graphs, text boxes and sometimes even tables. Depending on the age and sophistication of the ATS software, formatted tables may appear as an image, which it can’t read. Word or Txt resumes are best, even a .pdf file might get bounced because it appears as a single image.
- Bullets are ok but arrows, check marks and other pretties are not. Bolds are fine too.
- Stick with standard fonts – Arial, Verdana, Helvetica, or Tahoma and use 10 or 11 pt.
- Use standard headings that the ATS will recognize like Skills and Expertise instead of variations like Major Abilities.
- Add to your skills list with keywords, but don’t hide keywords in the white space. Spell out your skills and include industry-specific abbreviations or acronyms that the employer may also search for when finding candidates with the right experience.
- Customize your resume to their job description, matching up their keywords to yours, assuming you have those skills or expertise. But don’t copy and paste the job description into your resume. The ATS scores you on keywords, but a 90% match will red flag you and bounce you out.
- Put your contact info at the top – name, phone, email and LinkedIn URL. Don’t use the ‘header/footer’ formatting tool – the ATS can’t see it and you’ll have no contact info.
- PROOFREAD, and use SPELLCHECK! The ATS will skip the keyword if it doesn’t recognize it.
Standard reverse chronological presentation of the information is best. The ATS will re-order whatever you input into the chronological order it wants anyway.
