Submitting a job or internship application online can often feel like you’re throwing your resume into a black hole. For weeks, you hear nothing—no emails, no phone calls, and no indication that a hiring manager has seen your application or if it has even been successfully sent at all. The sad reality is that this is the norm for the average job-seeker; around 75% of applicants never hear back from a company they’ve applied to, which leads to feelings of frustration, confusion, and anxiety.
Because of the ease and increased accessibility of submitting job applications online, many companies are experiencing an overload of applicants, many of whom are unqualified. In fact, corporate recruiters can often receive hundreds—even thousands—of resumes for every job opening, which makes the process of reading through each resume that much more time-consuming. To combat this problem, many employers, including 97% of Fortune 500 companies, and job sites like LinkedIn and Indeed have adopted applicant tracking systems (ATS) to streamline and simplify this process.
An applicant tracking system is a tool that helps companies track every step of the recruitment process. When an applicant submits their resume and cover letter through a job posting, those materials are uploaded to the company’s ATS database, including details like contact information, previous job titles, and skills. A recruiting team then uses ATS to review resumes, send automated messages to candidates, schedule interviews, and distribute onboarding paperwork. Because ATS uses the information on the job posting to find ideal candidates, which often consists of matching keywords, it helps employers rank applicants and decide which ones are the most qualified to reach out to. Unfortunately, this means that 75% of applications are never seen by human eyes.
Of course, many recruiters—88% to be specific—acknowledge that ATS often ignores qualified applicants because their resumes don’t contain the right keywords. For example, if a recruiter is hiring for an Office Desk Assistant position and entered that in as a keyword, applicants who don’t have that phrase in their resume—even if they have the desired skills or an alternative job title—may fail to show up in an ATS search. That’s not taking into account that employers might perform a search for multiple keywords using ATS. In addition to “Office Desk Assistant,” a recruiter may search “customer service” and “data entry” and filter applications based on whether those keywords show up in a candidate’s resume. So, even if an applicant may be qualified for the position, they may be overlooked by ATS if their resume isn’t optimized for the system.
Unfortunately, there is no way to “beat” ATS. However, there are ways that an applicant can improve their chances of getting seen by an employer and progress in the hiring process. Since keywords are a big part of ATS filtering, reading the job posting and predicting the potential keywords can help optimize your resume. These keywords will often be skills or programs mentioned in the job description or required qualifications like education and previous job titles. Applicants may also use resume scanners such as Jobscan and Resume Worded to help identify potential keywords. This means that you’ll often tailor your resume for each job application to ensure it matches the position’s description.
Other ways to make sure that your resume doesn’t get overlooked by ATS include using a traditional font (such as Helvetica, Garamond, or Times New Roman), using the long-form and acronym versions of keywords (such as “Master of Fine Arts (MFA)” or “Seach Engine Optimization (SEO)”), and using standard section headings like “Work Experience” instead of nontraditional ones like “Where I’ve Been.” All of these small tweaks can keep the personalization of your resume intact while catching the attention of ATS. Another important thing to keep in mind is to make sure that your resume is submitted in a universally readable format such as a PDF file or a Microsoft Word format. Otherwise, your resume may be difficult for the system to read and thus ignored by ATS’s search function.
While the existence of ATS may be daunting and add to the ever-increasing anxieties that come with job or internship searching, it doesn’t always have to be seen as an obstacle. As a matter of fact, ATS can be seen as an additional tool to help you stand out in the growing crowd of applications. By tailoring your resume, including the right keywords, and presenting your application in a readable format, you can now become one of the select few picked up by ATS’s screening and reach the eyes of a human recruiter. And with that, you’re one step closer to landing that job or internship you’ve applied for.
Resources
If you’re interested in this topic and want to learn more about how to optimize your resume for ATS, here are some additional resources:
“How to Make an ATS-Friendly Resume—Tips for ATS 2024”
“What Is an ATS? 8 Things You Need to Know About Applicant Tracking Systems”
“Decoding the Applicant Tracking Systems ATS as a Job Seeker”
“What Is an Applicant Tracking System (ATS)? Here’s Why You Should Use One”