A Job Hunter’s Guide to Getting Your Resume Past ATS
Companies adopted applicant tracking systems (ATS) because of their efficiency. Instead of a person reading every resume individually, an ATS can scan an entire database of resumes from keywords and criteria. Here’s a job hunter’s guide to getting your resume past the ATS with ATS Optimized Resumes.
1. ATS Want Specific Matches
When you submit your resume, applicant tracking systems parse the information from your resume and store it in its database. Then, recruiters can search for resumes submitted to a specific job and the system will pull up the resumes with the most keyword matches. So your resume might populate for a different position down the road that matches your skillset.
2. ATS Want Specific Keywords
For your application to rank highly for the position you want, your resume needs to contain the right keywords. So, your best bet is to tailor the content to the exact way the job description is written. Yes, adjusting your wording for every application takes more time and effort than sending a generic resume. You can use ATS Optimized Resumes to match missing skills and keywords from job description with the click of a button.
3. Focus on Hard Skills
An ATS primarily looks for hard skills when it scans your resume. Soft skills will be assessed later in your cover letter and during the interview, so prioritizing them on your resume won’t earn you too many points.
Focus on your technical skills, credentials, position titles, and software or tools that are relevant in the industry because those are the keywords they’ll be looking for.
4. Use Resume Keyword Tools like Intry
At Intry, we’ve researched the top applicant tracking systems used by thousands of companies and identified the common scoring and ranking patterns. Intry’s tools help people compare their resumes against the actual job descriptions, and make suggestions about which relevant, contextual keywords your resume is missing and score how well it matches the job description.
Click here to visit Intry and start optimizing your resume today!
