Beating the Machine: How to Get Your Resume into the Hands of a Human Recruiter.

This is the second article in my #JobHunt series. You can check out the first one here, or at the end of the post.

In any given week, recruiters will look at hundreds of resumes across several positions. And it's just getting worse with every passing year, as jobs become more competitive. To prevent recruiters from having to read thousands of resumes in a week, companies have developed the ATS, or applicant tracking systems. An ATS is a piece of software, that helps to weed out resumes, and give recruiters what it "thinks" are the best resumes.

The problem is that ATS are draconian in the way that they work, and people can lose their dream job because of a technicality like putting in a table, or an image in their resume. This article will teach you a little more about ATS, and the ways to get your resume past an ATS and into a recruiter's hands. Without further ado, let's begin.

About Applicant Tracking Systems

How ATS Basically Works

Applicants submit a resume. The ATS removes all the formatting and turns your resume into essentially searchable words. Next, the searchable words are sorted into different categories like "Work Experience" or "Education". Once the ATS finishes, it reconstructs the resume, and puts it in a database for recruiters to search through. Every ATS has a different search algorithm, just like how Google has its own search algorithm that differs from Bing.

As recruiters input specific keywords they are looking for in candidates (which are almost always in the job description), the ATS calculates a score based on the number of keywords included, their prevalence, and the ATS's proprietary algorithm. It's important to know that the ATS's calculated score may or may not be shown by the ATS, since it depends on the company. However, it will provide recruiters with what it "thinks" are the "most qualified" candidates. These are the candidates recruiters end up recruiting, and the rest are the ones they reject.

The easy way to tell if a company is using an ATS is through their URL.

If you're a seasoned job seeker, you may notice that many online applications look very similar to each other, even though they're for different companies. Chances are those companies are using the same ATS. And you can verify this easily by looking at the URL. Take a look above, then down below-- Taleo, iCIMS and Greenhouse.io are just a few names of ATS that are used by companies.

According to Capterra, these are the 20 most popular ATS:

Once you're familiarize yourself with the names of the most popular ATS, you will be able to spot them when you apply to certain jobs. This information is particularly useful, because it will tell you if you need to use an ATS optimized resume, or not.

The glaring problem with ATS.

A leader and prominent research in talent management, Bersin & Associates, performed a study that exposed the weakness of ATS. In their study, Bersin & Associates crafted the perfect resume-- it perfectly aligned with the ATS-- for a candidate applying to a clinical scientist position.

The ATS? Taleo, one of the leaders in the ATS space.

The Oakland based firm found that their perfect resume only scored a 43% relevancy ranking because the ATS misread the resume. First, Taleo's ATS lost all of the candidate's work experience because the resume had the date first, then the employer's name. Second and moreover, the ATS failed to process the candidate's several degrees, which would indicate to the recruiter that the candidate did not have the educational background required for the job.

The key takeaway is that even if you are the perfect fit for the job you're applying to, you may be rejected because an ATS failed to read your resume over trivial formatting issues. So let's talk about how you can reduce that in the next section.

How to Make Your Résumé ATS Friendly

Use an ATS optimized template.

ATS rejects a surprising amount of candidates based on formatting errors, as I mentioned earlier. The easiest way to fix this is to use ATS optimized resumes. They read line by line from left to right, top to bottom (which means it cannot register columns or tables which I'll go into in a bit) Many people want to be creative or want their resumes to look nice-- when you look at ATS optimized resumes, they just look like lines of text, which they are. But it allows the ATS to correctly parse all relevant information into its predetermined categories with little to no chance of error. And if you want to get creative, you can use a different font, or add a little bit of color accents for emphasis.You can find some templates here.

Now here's an example of what happens when you do not use an ATS optimized resume.

(Source: CIO)

According to Meredith Levinson of CIO, " the applicant tracking system made many mistakes importing information from the resume. Among them, it put the job seeker's executive summary under her work experience and listed an award she received as an employer."

Check your résumé against an "ATS".

As I mentioned earlier, job descriptions almost always contain the keywords recruiters look for in a resume. This means that you can easily predict most if not all the keywords recruiters are looking for. This also means that if you explicitly mention those words in your resume, the ATS will rank you higher.

Take the job description and/or the requirements, and place it in a keyword density tool (linked is my favorite one). You'll quickly see which words rise to the top. Add those words to your resume, then put your resume in the keyword density tool. Do the same words come up to the top? If not, then you need to mention them more. If they do, great!

Page length does not "matter".

We're often told to limit our resume to one page. The only time you should do this is if the company explicitly asks for only one page, the company does not use an ATS, you're applying for more "creative" positions, or you are giving a recruiter your in-person resume (yes, your in-person should differ from the one you submit online). What most people don't know is that the ATS doesn't care about pages.

There is no such thing as "pages" for ATS. When they parse all the information from the resume you submitted, it combines all the information into one scroll-able "page" for the recruiter. Because ATSs create scored based on keyword prevalence and frequency, having more pages (if you have the applicable experience) can increase your score dramatically. This does not mean you should put all your work experience on your resume, then submit a 5 page resume. It means that if you have a lot of relevant experience that cannot fit into one page for the position you're applying to, then don't be afraid of using another page. Just note that should you land an interview, the recruiter will most likely use the resume you submitted, not the one the ATS creates. This means that you should be reasonable about the number of pages you submit, since the recruiter and your interviewers may eventually see it.

DO NOT misspell.

The reason is simple. If you misspell a keyword that a recruiter is looking for, it will not register with the ATS, and therefore will not show, or rank your resume lower than it should be. Always ensure your spelling and grammar are good. My tip is to do something else for a bit, then re-check your resume when you have a fresh pair of eyes, or to read your resume from bottom to top.

DO NOT put in tables or pictures.

This is one of the top reasons why people do not get interviews.

As a result of the "one page limit rule", candidates try to format their pages in creative ways through tables, two column layouts, etc.. The problem is that ATS do not recognize tables, and these other ways of formatting so when it begins to parse information, it can misplace it. Have you ever formatted something perfectly in Word, but when you look at in Google Docs, the format is all messed up? That's essentially what an ATS does with your resume.

Do NOT submit your résumé as a .pdf.

Simply put, .pdf file extension makes it difficult for an ATS to structure a PDF in a standard way. That means it may mislabel parts of your resume. If you have a choice, submit your resume as a .doc or .docx as it's easier for the ATS to parse.

Do NOT make create special sections.

In an effort to be different, people will create unique sections like "Research and Leadership", or "Humanitarian Work". ATSs do not recognize deviant categories, and cannot separate your information. Stick to things like "Education", and "Work Experience".

Closing

The good news is that ATSs are getting better as time progresses. For example, as one reader, Dr. Verma, points out, ATSs are getting better at accepting different formats other than .doc/.docx for resumes. Granted, ATSs are getting better at dealing with PDFs, but because not all of them can, it's better to lean on the safer side.

To sum up the key points, they are:

• Don't get fancy. Use an ATS optimized resume template.
• Check your resume against an ATS with a keyword density tool.
• Avoid putting in pictures, special formatting, or tables.
• Page length does not matter to an ATS.
• Avoid spelling errors.
• Submit your resume as a .doc or .docx if you have the choice to.
• Stick to the standard naming convention for different parts of your resume.

Do you have any further thoughts, advice or question on ATS? Let me know below!

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First article in this series:

#StudentVoices

Edited 1/29/2017 to provide more clarity around "rejection", and addressed concerns of the readers by adding more detail and context.