The Invisible System That Decides Whether Your Resume Ever Reaches a Human

Highlights

1. Roughly 99% of Fortune 500 companies now utilize an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) as part of their hiring process prior to a recruiter reading through your resume.
2. More than 70% of submitted resumes are deleted by Applicant Tracking Systems.
3. Most rejections today are not because of your qualifications, but because of a number of formatting mismatches that the software couldn't parse.
4. Simple fixes such as matching keywords found in the job posting, standard headings, and a clean format can have your resume pass through the ATS filter and have it reach the hiring manager's desk for review. Also, making sure the file type is the proper for the job board can ensure your application is read by the hiring manager.
5. Combining an optimized resume with a list of relevant job openings greatly increases a candidate's visibility.

A job seeker can put in hours and hours of work for a single application and get nothing in return for their time. You may have heard of the phrase "silence is rejection." This is the most common type of rejection. No form letter, no phone call, no automated email to thank the applicant for their time and consideration.

The majority of the time, people think that their application was rejected because a hiring manager didn't like their resume. This is rarely the case, and more than likely the resume was never even looked at by a human being, parsed correctly by an applicant tracking system (ATS).

The Invisible System That Decides Whether Your Resume Ever Reaches a Human.

About 99% of Fortune 500 companies now use some form of ATS in their hiring process. And most companies of every size now use an ATS as well. For example, the Applicant Tracking System was created to handle thousands of applications that large corporations would receive for one job opening. But now it is used by companies of nearly every size to help sort through large numbers of applicants for a variety of job openings. Over 70% of resumes are filtered out by an ATS before ever reaching a hiring manager. Most rejections are due to formatting mismatches that an employer's hiring software cannot parse correctly.

It's a misconception that 99% of Fortune 500 companies utilize some type of Applicant Tracking System. In reality, it's now become a standard practice for companies of nearly every size. 

Here is a staggering statistic: according to career resource NovoResume, over 70% of resumes get filtered out by the ATS and never even make it to the hiring manager's desk. This is due to a variety of reasons, but the main cause is a simple formatting mismatch that the software is unable to parse correctly.

This is a difficult reality to accept when we consider the common saying that hard work and good qualifications get you hired. As mentioned before, talent is not enough and is often filtered out before even reaching the eyes of a hiring manager.

Why Isn't Talent Alone Enough Anymore?

This is an uncomfortable thing to accept, but it is how many hiring processes work today. Your hard work and qualifications are not enough to get your resume past a computer filter first. That filter is not looking for character, potential, or how well you will fit in with the team. Instead, it is looking for structure and specific language. If your resume does not have the correct format or keywords, then you will be eliminated from consideration regardless of your qualifications.

However, this problem is not isolated to resume searching. It exists anywhere talent is searching for opportunity to be recognized. A writer has a great story, but the editor never sees it. A great article is never published. A musician has great talent, but the record company never hears of him or her. 

Even a newsroom's own CMS for broadcast media works the same way behind the scenes, deciding whether a finished story ever reaches an audience at all. In the end, it is the system underneath that determines whether the talented individual and their work get recognized. That is why it is so very important to understand the systems in place and to learn to work with them to get your resume past the filter and in front of the hiring manager.

What Actually Trips Up an ATS?

A number of pitfalls can cause highly qualified candidates to get caught in the ATS net.

1. Keywords: Many systems score applicants based on keywords from their resume that match up with keywords in the job post. 

For example, in the work experience section for your resume, if you ever "oversaw a team" of people in your previous job, instead of writing "oversaw" you should write "managed" because the manager of the company that is posting the job listed "managed" as a keyword in the job post.

1. Unusual formatting: If you have a resume that is formatted in a non-traditional fashion, such as a resume with tables, text boxes, columns, graphics, or even a resume that uses a number of different fonts, then it is likely to be problematic for an Applicant Tracking System. Often such a resume will be read by the system, but in places, the resume may appear to have been 'scrambled' or even that certain sections of the resume have been removed entirely.
2. Unconventional headings for sections: Instead of using typical headings like "Work Experience" for your job history, using headings like "My Journey" can confuse the application tracking system and prevent it from correctly reading your resume.
3. File format: Many employers, especially those who use older applicant tracking systems (ATS), are not able to open files in nonstandard formats. This is why it is so important to save your resume in standard formats, such as PDF or Word, before applying for jobs.

The candidate's work was most likely strong and demonstrated excellent abilities for performing the job in question. However, there were a few very preventable errors that are more common to those who are not familiar with the workings of the applicant tracking systems. These would have been easily repaired had the candidate or their recruiter been aware of the criteria of the ATS being utilized.

What can you do to work with the system, rather than having the system work against you?

This does not mean to write a 'keyword-stuffed resume'. Your existing resume most likely highlights your real work experience, skills, and accomplishments. Make sure your resume is written and formatted in a way that the software can read it as well as a human.

The resume has already been formatted and worded to reflect the candidate's experience and abilities. The goal is to ensure that the resume as it is is formatted in a way that the ATS can read and that it is submitted in the file format requested by the application.

Building a quality resume through a job portal that has ATS-compliant resume building is ideal for this, because the structure has been reverse-engineered for them. 

And then the candidate can browse active listings for employment opportunities that match their skills, experience, and background, using a resource like 15 Best Job Search Sites for Job Seekers or a roundup of the 20 Best Job Boards and Search Engines to find the right platform for their search. This allows a job seeker the greatest chance of getting their application past the automated system and in front of the human who can make hiring decisions.

The Uncomfortable Lesson Behind All of This

There is something very humbling about the realization that your application for a job has not been successful not because of your lack of talent, but because of the fact that your resume or application did not get past the system. We all know that it can be very difficult to accept the fact that our work has not been recognized or that we have not been given a chance to prove ourselves. 

However, we must remember that the work we do is important, and the fact that it has not been recognized does not mean that it is not valuable. What it means is that the system that was meant to facilitate our finding a job has failed. But the system can be fixed.

But this work, so put into the making of a resume, matters enormously. And it is not the candidate who did this work that is being failed by the resume that was never parsed correctly by the ATS. Rather, it is the infrastructure that is failing, and that can be fixed.

Summary

Just remembering that an application has gone off into the void, never to have been considered, can give a different slant to evaluating whether you were good enough for a job for which you applied. 

Combining a well-written resume, even one which follows ATS-compatible guidelines for resume presentation, with the active consideration of job listings from a list of trusted job platforms will go the longest way in getting past the many obstacles which now block the simplest of processes - finding a job for which you are well suited.