Job Hunting: What's an ATS and How Does It Affect Me?

ATS, or applicant tracking system, is a software used by HR department to ingest and filter resumes from you, the jobseekers, for the hiring managers or decision makers. Often used by larger companies, ATS is a hurdle you must pass before your resume was viewed by a human eye... if you go through the normal application process. 

There are many different ATS's out there, and most of them are branded. You may recognize the name "ICIMS". This is one of the largest ATS out there. Next time you apply at an employer portal, you may see this mentioned at the bottom. However, this is only one of many systems out there. 

ATS is just software, written by humans, so they are stuck in interpreting certain patterns, and they present information in certain patterns to the users. Over time, details about ATS have leaked, and some commonalities have emerged, which resulted in the following tips. While the following tips do NOT apply to all ATSs, every bit of advantage you can get to get past the ATS, the better. 

Bypass the ATS

The best way to get past the ATS is with an internal referral. So check your friends and family for a connection at the prospective employer. Don't hound LinkedIn and spam new employees. They can't refer you since they're still on probationary period. 

Keep in mind that this does not always bypass the ATS. The resume you pass off to your referral may still end up in the ATS, but the fact that you were referred internally usually makes your resume appear earlier.

Name Your Resume with Full Name and Job Title

When you upload your resume, what was its filename? Resume.docx? You're missing an opportunity to stand out. Name it instead Resume_YourName_JobTitle_EmployerName.pdf where you substitute the fields with your name, the job you're applying to, and the employer's name. Not only it keeps YOUR OWN resume variations easy to find, it looks much better on the ATSs that display the full filename, not just the contents. 

Export Your Resume in PDF format

Some ATSs prefer certain document types, but most of them will process PDF correctly. If you can (and why can't you?) export your resume as PDF. 

Single Column Layout Only

Your resume will be parsed by the ATS to extract skills, experience, and so on. The fancier your layout, the less likely the ATS will parse it correctly, and a multi-column layout is one of the messiest to parse. While ATS have advanced, you have no idea what sort of ATS was being used by your prospective employer. Therefore, stick with single column layout. It is the safest choice to ensure your resume is parsed properly. 

Do NOT Stuff Keywords

You may have heard somewhere that if you include extra copies of keywords in your resume, your resume will score higher in the search results, and thus get seen by a human eye. This cuts both ways. While it may get you past the ATS, you'll get rejected at the human review phase. It's quite obvious you've been keyword stuffing just by reading it. Some ATS will highlight every instance the keyword(s), and your resume will show a plethora of yellow highlights.  

Research Which ATS is being used

The aforementioned tips are meant to be generic tips that applies to most ATS. If you can find out which ATS is used by your prospective employer, you may be able to research the optimal way to present your resume to the ATS to make sure you don't get rejected immediately. 

In Conclusion

If you have managed to optimize your resume for the ATS, then any rejection you suffer would be from criteria that may not be as obvious or just plainly not written in the job description. ATS for each job usually has a set of "knockout questions" specified by HR or Hiring Manager that will immediately disqualify you. Why they don't put those criteria in the job description and not waste your time, I have no idea.  But then, when some companies put up fake job listings, I guess anything goes. Still, job hunting is about doing all you can, and if that happens to be not enough due to what's beyond your control, there's always another job listing to apply to. 

Good luck in your job hunting. 

Job Hunting: Why Were You Rejected? (Hint: It's not always about you)

Fellow jobseekers, if you've applied for jobs in the past few years, you've no doubt received generic replies in your Inbox such as these:

"Thank you for applying. This role is now closed..."

"...We will not be moving forward with your application. We will keep your resume on file..."

This can happen even when you think you are the PERFECT candidate. 

What's even more frustrating is the company then reposts the same job with the same requirements again, making you wonder if you should apply again, only to be met with yet another rejection notice. 

Photo of Candidate being Interviewed by Resume Genius on Unsplash

Here's some revelations that may be shocking to many of you: 

3 in 10 companies surveyed by Resume Builder said they are advertising for a role that's NOT REAL.  And 4 in 10 have advertised a fake role in the past year. 

The reasons vary, but ultimately it's to make the company look busier and healthier than it actually is, and to play mind games with existing employees (either they will get relief soon, or to make them feel replaceable). And yes, they will interview candidates, if only to keep up appearances. The most troubling part: 7 in 10 hiring managers believe the ends justify the means, i.e. it's morally OK to post fake jobs they have no intention to actually fill. 

Another possibility is the job role exists, but they have an internal candidate already slotted for it. However, due to procedure (and/or they don't want the internal candidate feel too confident) they will advertise the job and interview external candidates, even though it's mainly for show. 

THEN there are the scam listings from companies that don't exist or were impersonated, with hiring managers that don't exist, whose profiles are cloned from other profiles and whose photos were lifted from dating or social media sites... And the problem is a lot worse than you think. According to LinkedIn, they deactivated 63 million fake accounts in latter half of 2023. Technically, 46.3M were stopped at registration... but 17.1M accounts were deactivated AFTER they were reported by members then investigated by the internal security and trust teams. That's just LinkedIn. There are dozens of job boards out there. I've personally ran into a few of the employment scams.

Okay, what if the job's actually being filled, at a legitimate company? Why were YOU not accepted then?

Did you even make it to an interview? If not, that means you were rejected at "first pass". That means hiring manager didn't like your resume (as compared to others). Keep in mind hiring managers are flooded with resumes, HUNDREDS of them, for a single job posting. They don't have the time or the inclination to study each resume in detail. Instead, the hiring manager will look for ANY reason to reject your resume, including any of the following reasons:

• Resume looks ugly, badly formated, etc. 
• Resume is hard to read i.e. "block of text" instead of bullet points
• Resume is too cute/fancy / unprofessional
• Resume's top 1/4 doesn't tell me anything useful about the candidate (header too sparse)
• Resume's top 1/4 doesn't tell me why this candidate is a good fit for the role
• Resume's top 1/4 doesn't tell me what's unique about THIS candidate i.e. "why you?"

If your resume survived this round of culling, it has caught the hiring manager's attention. You *could* be a good fit for the role, you are showing something unique in your "value proposition", and it was easily gleaned from you resume because you made the top 1/4 of your resume packed with information, yet still perfectly readable and glance-able, takes minimal effort to understand it. 

Now, comes the hard part... The hiring manager wants to believe that you are good, but hiring manager is not stupid. Hiring manager will now look for LESS SUBTLE signs, between the lines, things that were NOT written, as reasons to reject your resume. Those can include any of the following reasons:

• Incomplete start and end dates on the jobs (what is the candidate hiding?)
• Short duration jobs (less than 2 years) (a job hopper, make me do this again so soon...)
• LONG duration jobs (more than 5 years) (so you're not good enough to promote?)
• Unexplained employment gaps 
• Lack of specific achievements in jobs 
• No cover letter 

That last one may be a shock to some, but some hiring managers view the lack of cover letter as "you clearly don't want this bad enough" and use that as a reason to toss your resume into discard pile. 

So please write a proper cover letter, customize it with content from your resume AND the job listing, and use that to tell a story about how you would be the perfect fit for the job. 

If you need advice on how to customize a resume, see my previous blogpost. 

Now write those resumes and cover letters, and get that job you deserve.