A Harvard Business School study says that, as of June 2021, nearly 10 million people in the U.S are searching for a job. Companies are in dire need of hiring talent, yet most workers are still struggling to find a job. A survey reveals that 75 percent of resumes are rejected before they reach the hiring manager.
Today, almost every company uses technology in recruitment in some form. Nearly 98% of Fortune 500 companies and 66% of large companies use an Applicant Tracking System (ATS). An ATS is supposed to streamline the recruitment process and help make the best hires faster.
But not all applicant tracking systems are built the same. Most of them lack intelligence and reject qualified resumes while screening. So, how do applicants beat the ATS and get through the hiring process? This article discusses how Applicant Tracking Systems work, why do they create a gap between qualified candidates and companies that need them.
What is an ATS? How does it Work?
An Applicant Tracking System (ATS) is a software application that handles hiring needs and automates the lion’s share of recruitment, making the complete process easier. It helps recruiters and employers in screening resumes and candidates. It has a database of candidate details stored and makes it easy to navigate those details.
Applicant Tracking Systems are designed and used to filter out candidates that don’t meet job descriptions. An ATS works on a specific search algorithm and has filter setups to disqualify candidates that don’t match the requirements. An ATS is more like Google for recruiters. It helps them search profiles using keywords or skills and retrieves candidates that match the criteria. Say, if a recruiter searches for “programming” or “developer,” the ATS shows up resumes with exactly the same words. So, the primary challenge of an ATS is it filters out good candidates and creates a gap between them and the potential employer. Let’s see why this happens.
Limitations of an Applicant Tracking System
An ATS works like Google for recruiters. However, it is not as intelligent as Google as it is incompetent to show up results relevant and related to the keywords search. For example, ATS doesn’t recognize “Python” as a programming language and hence it leaves out potential candidates. It only shows you candidates that used the exact keywords in their resumes.
Four Crucial Reasons Why an ATS Rejects your Resume
Ignoring Keywords
The first element an ATS looks for in a resume is keywords. Optimizing the keywords on your resume is most important to create an ATS-friendly resume. ATS helps recruiters to search for resumes using keywords. Hence, if your resume doesn’t have the keywords they’re searching for, you are not getting through this very first step of your job search.
So, where should you use keywords to get past the ATS? Recruiters ask their ATS to search for keywords in the job titles, skills, and other areas such as responsibilities. For example, ATS searches for software engineers or project managers in the job titles and excel, marketing, or customer service in the skills.
So, the best way to get noticed by an ATS is to include the job title you’re applying for in the resume headline. You need to search for the skill the job requires and use it multiple times in your description.
Multiple Applications
An ATS filters out all duplicate or spammy applications. When applying for different positions with the same organization, the ATS considers it as a duplicate and rejects all your applications. Moreover, job seekers should take the time to read the job description before applying. For example, you cannot apply for a video editor position and customer representative position at the same organization at the same time with the same resume. Moreover, even it get past the ATS and reaches human hands, the recruiter rejects it, assuming you haven’t read the job description. In such cases, job seekers need to apply with different resumes for two different openings if they really meet the eligibility.
Resume Not Matching the Job Description
Most often, recruiters receive applications that do not match their job description. With ATS and skill matching algorithms in the picture, most of the resumes are rejected for the same reason. Hence, if you have irrelevant information on your resume, you’re not likely to get an interview call. After all, what an ATS looks for is not that different from what human scans for.
Improper Formats & Design
The design, format, and fonts you use on your resume are as important as the technical skills you included in it. The ATS eliminates formatting as much as possible to analyze and parse the information easily. If you’re using too many elements such as tables, columns, headers, footers, etc., the important details are likely to be stripped out with the elements.
The best way to beat this part of ATS is to use standard headings, font type, and size.
Bottom Line
Yes, it feels like a lot to just impress an ATS. But it’s worth it as your resume is the only first thing that can get you your dream job. Just by clearly analyzing the above four reasons and preparing your resume accordingly will help you crack the algorithm of an ATS.
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