What you need to know about developing ATS-friendly resumes

A company that utilizes a candidate tracking system will most likely be able to attract, identify and hire the top talent within a short period of time in the current job market. In contrast, companies that do not use the new recruitment technologies will fail to meet their recruiting goals. The importance of ATS-friendly resumes is, therefore, greater than ever.

With recruiting software in place for your hiring process, all of your recruiting data is digitalized and centralized on one platform. A preliminary screening of the received applications is also performed to identify the most promising candidates. Among the many things an ATS can do for you, these are just a few to mention. A good applicant tracking system will improve both the recruiting and hiring processes. In addition, it helps in alleviating the most critical problems involved in hiring and acquiring talent.

Is it because companies prefer robots to make HR decisions?

Speed is all that matters. It takes a long time and is tiresome to sort through hundreds of thousands of resumes. By detecting resumes that contain the required key skill sets and experience, applicant tracking systems accelerate this process.

According to a report, almost 75% of applicants cannot get their resumes past the ATS screening. Screening reduces a large applicant pool to a select few candidates that are able to be evaluated more closely by hiring managers.

What are the best practices for creating ATS-friendly resumes?

Applicants can ensure their resumes are ATS friendly by following these tips:

Your resume should be formatted like the following:

Contrary to what is commonly believed, PDFs are not the best candidate tracking files. Despite the fact that PDFs are the best option for securing resume design and format. Nevertheless, not every applicant tracking system supports PDFs. You should use a format that is compatible with the applicant tracking system. Upload a PDF of your resume if the file format should be PDF.

In any case, if the system has not listed any specific category of files compatible to use, you should stick to Word documents in .doc or .docx format to be safe. Plain-text files are also an excellent option, as they are highly compatible with an ATS. However, they do not offer many formatting options. The best resumes focus on two distinct audiences. The application is pre-screened by robots, then analyzed by human beings after having been through the applicant tracking system. You should therefore prepare your resume in Word format. It will be particularly attractive to recruiters and hiring managers since it provides more formatting options.

The header and footer shouldn’t contain important details:

There are some applicant tracking systems that cannot read and parse the header and footer of a Word document. Recent studies suggest that most applicant tracking systems are incapable of identifying a section of the applicant’s contact information 25% of the time. Put your crucial contact information outside the header and footer of the resume to avoid such mistakes. You could include your name, email address, or contact number.

When optimizing your resume, use keywords:

Optimizing resumes with keywords is one of the best ways to develop ATS-friendly resumes. When you use words such as “proactive” or “ambitious,” your hard and soft skills can represent. Additionally, it represents the expertise you’ve gained over the years and makes you an ideal candidate for the job. You will need to assemble three to five job descriptions that represent the concerned job position if you aren’t familiar with the keywords. Afterward, use a word-cloud generator (Wordle, WordArt, or Tagxedo) to copy and paste the job description and identify the terms that are used most frequently in your chosen positions. Include these keywords in your resume if you possess the skills or qualifications.

Whenever it comes to developing an ATS-optimized resume, it is important to consider how frequently and where you have placed these keywords. There are some applicant tracking systems that evaluate how credible your skills are based on how many times a term occurs in the resume (ideally you should use the term two or three times throughout your resume), while other applicant tracking systems calculate experience for a skill-based on where it is mentioned elsewhere. You should optimize your resume for both ATS and ATS-like systems to create ATS-friendly resumes.

Please do not use images, charts, or other graphics:

The human eye may find images and graphics attractive. The human eye perceives resumes with inserted images as a blurred combination. It is possible for them to get lost after passing through an applicant tracking system. Recruiting software will not be able to read an image or chart that represents your main skills, for example. Your name will be invisible to an applicant tracking system if you have used a cool graphic on your resume.

Use bullet points to keep it simple:

Bullet points are a great way to highlight achievements and qualifications on a resume when they use correctly. Alternatively, if you choose an intricate character for your bullets, your marketing points may appear muddled. When creating a bulleted list for your CV, do not use elaborate symbols. Make your resume as simple as possible. Ensure that your bullet points improve your resume by using a solid circle, an open circle, or a square. If you want your resume to accept by applicant tracking systems, avoid the mistakes that make it unsuitable.

A resume parser does exactly what it sounds like.

Most likely, the candidates described the same experiences and education in different ways. These documents are converted into the required formats by an industry-standard resume parsing program. Recruiters and organizations use different formats based on their software. A neutralized language would also allow applicants to compare more easily.

The layout and hierarchy of your resume should be simple:

Your resume layout should be as simple as possible. Having a complicated design for your resume not only confuses applicant tracking systems but aggravates recruiters as well. ATS requires specific information on resumes that is easily scannable and compliant with ATS requirements.

Cohesiveness

A LinkedIn profile with keywords similar to your resume is the most important job strategy. By using this approach, you will be able to optimize your job search. In addition, it demonstrates consistency and entices recruiters to pay attention to your details.