10 Sure-Fire Steps to Getting Your Resume Past an ATS
Are you wondering why your resume isn’t resulting in interviews? Do you question if recruiters even accessed your resume?
About 75% of recruiters rely on applicant tracking systems (ATS) to screen out unqualified resumes. That’s right: an ATS is used more to screen out “bad” resumes than to collect good resumes!
Recruiters use ATSs to weed out resumes that don’t meet the criteria listed in their job ad, saving them from having to personally sort through hundreds, sometimes thousands, of potentially unqualified applicants.
This means, regardless of your actual skills and experience, if your resume doesn’t meet at least the basic criteria it will get screened out. Your resume will fall into what is commonly referred to as the resume black hole.
How important is it to factor in an ATS as you write your resume? A study by Harvard Business Review found that almost 90% of employers believed that high-skilled applicants were screened out of positions because they “did not match the exact criteria established by the job description.” That number rose to 94% for middle-skilled candidates who were vetted out of the hiring process due to an application tracking system.
While an ATS-friendly resume cannot guarantee someone an interview, it can, at least, ensure that their resume isn’t discarded based on trivial technicalities. In the infographic below are ten steps to ensure your resume is able to get past an ATS.
