Presented

1. T
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Y ES OM
ON M .C
TH SU RS
AN RE KE
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AR TI BS
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2. APPLICANT TRACKING SYSTEM
It’s an automated resume screener that
feature and highlight keywords set by
the employer to exclude perceived
unqualified resumes.

3. HOW DOES THE ATS WORK?
W Parser
Program that removes styling and
breaks down text into recognized
Human Resources strings of characters for further
analysis
Education Skills Experience
Search for relevant terms

4. FORMAT
Do not submit a highly formatted resume
electronically. Stick to a simple format or save
your highly formatted resume as a .txt (ASCII)
file. Most ATS will scramble tables, graphs,
and graphics, defeating your purpose in
presenting them

5. KEYWORDS
Don't assume that it is enough to include the
common keywords for your position, level,
function, and industry or the ones in a job
posting! Many ATS will identify as keywords
the uncommon, unique-to-the-job-posting
words or phrases in the job ad.

6. HEADINGS & SECTIONS
Most ATS will only recognize the common headings: Work
Experience or Professional Experience, Education, and
sometimes Professional Summary. Eliminate creative
headings such as "Career Highlights."
So if you have information essential to your application,
such as certifications, community activities, publications
etc., I suggest you include it under the Education
heading.

7. CONTACT INFO & PROCESS
Leave text out of the Header and Footer
sections. Put it at the top of page one. Don't
paste your resume into a field online. Rather,
upload it if given the opportunity. Chances are
better that the formatting will remain intact
with this method.

8. ACRONYMS & ABBREVIATIONS
Don't rely on acronyms alone. Include the full
language. For instance, don't use USPs for
"unique selling points." ATS should process
common acronyms correctly, such as BA, MA,
and MBA, but may not process other tech and
business acronyms right.

9. KEYWORD USE
Newer ATS recognizes keywords in proper
context within a sentence or word group.
Don't rely solely on a keyword list. Let the
job ad be your guide about which keywords
to use in context.

10. JOB DESCRIPTION
Don't forget that the ATS software will be
searching for the descriptions of your jobs!

11. RATINGS
A well qualified candidate with rate
will based on Keyword matches, set
by the employer.

12. DUE DILIGENCE
Visit the prospective employer's website to get
a sense of the corporate culture. Do they use
certain words to describe their values? If a
firm has a professed interest in environmental
sustainability, include relevant volunteer work
or memberships on your résumé. The
company may have programmed related
keywords into its resume screening software.

13. EXCLUDE, NOT
INCLUDE!!

14. RELEVANCE
• Keywords (#s & Quality)
• Current experience and training
• Phone interview
• Assessments (Behavioral, Skill)

15. IMPORTANT!
• Ask the employer,
“Do you use an ATS?” Research, research, and
more research
• Use basic fonts such as Times Romans and Arial
• Pay close attention to the keywords in job
descriptions
• Associate keywords with # and %
• Don’t use headers and footers
• Leave out special characters (*, ^, :@})

16. MORE HELPFUL HINTS TO WRITE
YOUR RESUME
1. Spelling, Typos, and Grammar MATTER!!
2. Vague descriptions are useless
3. LIES! LIES! Are unforgiveable!
4. Misuse of words
5. Work gaps need clarification in recent jobs
6. Using white fonts to stuff keywords on your resume
7. Do not send a PDF file
8. Use recognizable job titles