Why Your Job Application May Go Unseen ⬇️
Reasons Your Resume Might Not Make the Cut for Recruiter Review.
In today's fiercely competitive job market, job seekers are pulling out all the stops to distinguish themselves from the masses. A single job opening at a startup can attract hundreds of applicants, while larger corporations, especially those in the FAANG group, are likely receiving thousands.
A common strategy for distinguishing oneself in the job market is through resume design. Many job seekers are incorporating elements such as logos, headshots, creative fonts, and different layout techniques like charts and tables. What they aren’t aware of is that before their resume is reviewed by a human, it will likely first be reviewed by an Applicant Tracking System (ATS); in other words, a resume screening software.
What does an ATS do?
An ATS carefully scans resumes for things like keywords, skills and other qualifications that align with a company’s job posting. The most relevant resumes will be ranked higher and sent to the Recruiter for review. Resumes ranked the lowest normally will not. (ATS’ do other things too but that’s unimportant for this topic)
How can a resumes design harm my ranking?
An ATS is designed to analyze just plain text, meaning it only processes straightforward text and overlooks everything else. Adding embellishment to your resume with colors, graphics, company logos, headshots, unusual fonts, or trying to enhance readability with tables, might not work in your favor.
These elements can lead to parsing errors. If the ATS struggles to interpret your resume, it can't effectively scan and match it to the job criteria, resulting in your resume being filtered out due to a low ranking. Consequently, it's less likely that a recruiter will ever see it.
What is an acceptable resume design?
In terms of design, less is more. No complex layouts. Keep it simple and consistent.
Format: linear and in PDF or Word
Font: Arial, Times New Roman, Calibri, and Helvetica are a few
Bullet points: Stick to circular or square bullet points or dashes
Images: Unnecessary & risky.
Tables, Charts, Graphs: Unnecessary & risky.
Columns: Safer not to do but if you must, only two. *Free ATS approved resume templates, with & without columns, here.
Colors: Unnecessary but if you want to use color sparingly, keep it neutral & professional (gray, black, navy blue, dark red & purple - you can actually google ‘acceptable resume colors’)
Section titles: Stick to the standard, don’t try to be different. (example: swapping ‘Skills’ with ‘What I bring to the table’)
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