About the ATS
By Soozy G. Miller, CPRW, CDCC, CDP
Applicant tracking systems, or ATS, is the software that companies use to manage all candidates for an open position.
The ATS may be a very frustrating topic for you, because you’ve probably heard of ATS but you can’t actually see how the ATS is used in hiring. You just feel frustrated when you haven’t heard back or you’ve been immediately rejected.
I want to help you understand how the ATS works so that you can land a job sooner.
The ATS is sometimes considered the first hiring gatekeeper at a company. It’s quite simple software that companies use to manage all job applicants. ATS is particularly helpful when the applicant pool is large. You may assume that hiring right now is a difficult and exhausting task.
The ATS at its most basic is simply a digital filing cabinet. It accepts resumes (applications) and displays them on a screen for the user. It can be commanded to do a variety of tasks related to hiring, and it offers various optional features to the user to accomplish those tasks. These features include knock-out questions, rejection and invitation emails, internal candidate notes, re-ordering the candidate queue, and the AI version of all the of above.
Therefore, if you get a rejection at 3am, or on a weekend, or within one minute, that does not necessarily mean that AI was involved, and it definitely does not mean that the ATS “auto-rejected” you despite what you see in media reports and social media videos. Rejection also does not mean that your resume wasn’t “ATS friendly” or “ATS compatible” because there is no such thing. You were rejected because you answered questions during the application and one answer triggered an automatic rejection, or because your resume did not contain a crucial skill or company keyword that the ATS was programmed to find.
I’ve had people whine at me, I deserved that job! Then I remind them that they live in Miami and the job is in Toronto. Oops.
Have you ever applied to a job by uploading your resume, only to get to the next page where your information has been parsed into a form, and it’s all wrong? And then you have to go and correct all the details? It feels like you’re writing your resume all over again. That is an example of an older or cheaper ATS system. This is NOT a reflection of the company culture or whether or not you’re a good candidate, but it’s a total turnoff.
That clunky application happened for one of two reasons: The companies went cheap and under-spent on the software, or they chose this software for the annoying application process to add friction and reduce the number of applications.
Sometimes the person using the ATS doesn’t even know how to use the software, or they have been given an ATS package without a lot of those features. I’m telling you, the hiring process is difficult on both sides of the desk.
“Beating the ATS” is therefore really about making sure that your resume is tailored to the position. This includes having a section on your resume specifically designated for your skillset. You can call it Related Skills or Core Competencies or Key Skills. I recommend using the keywords mentioned in the specific job posting that you like. Then, if the ATS is programmed to look for any of these keywords, or the ATS user manually searches for those keywords, your resume will show up in the search results. If the ATS user is looking at every resume, having those key skills and words shows the hiring team that you have read the job posting—which most candidates DON’T do—and that you speak the company language. Does that make sense?
Regardless how much you want the job, or think that you deserve the job, the fact is that you could get lost in the candidate queue. If you don’t tailor your resume to the specific job posting then your chances of being seen are reduced.
What’s the remedy for all this? Focus your title, summary, and skills sections to the needs of the company and prove your hire in your experience section with impact and results. Then your chances of being seen increase. I wish I could call this a “hack” or a trick, and say that’s the key, but it’s never that simple. This just increases your chances.
The ATS that you’ve heard about could be programmed to keep you from landing an interview if your job search strategy doesn’t work. For now, companies use them to keep up with the barrage of job seekers. Your goal is to be noticed inside the ATS and to land an interview. My methodology gets you there.
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Better job. More pay. More control.
For a resume review, please contact us at Control Your Career!