Proudly serving military families
for all their employment readiness and career advancement needs
since 2004
Sign up at www.msccn.org
At the end of the ATS’s review of your information, it will give you an overall score. This score is the specific piece of information that will either pass you on to the recruiter or will disqualify you. With the use of the following steps, you will not only better understand how to target your resume, but you will increase your chances of getting past that dreaded ATS.
Step 1: Use the Job Announcement
Remember the job announcement was created by the company, often with the use of their ATS, so make sure you are reading the announcement several times. Once you feel you are a good fit and qualified, I suggest reading the announcement and highlighting all the keywords and phrases used by the company. This includes the qualifications and skills required, as well as any other words or phrases that are repeatedly used within the announcement. These are the words you want to make sure are covered within your resume.
Step 2: Format your Resume
Keep it simple! The fancier it looks the more likely it is to get kicked out by the ATS. Some ATS cannot read special characters and formats including tables. What it sees is more along the lines of a jumbled mess of letters/numbers. Bullet points are completely acceptable as long as you are using a simple character, like a dot or dash, and not something like an arrow or heart. You should consider leaving your credentials off your name so that an ATS doesn’t call you John SmithRN, or Mr. Smith RN. I have had that happen to me. The formatting of your dates of employment should follow traditional standards – MM/DD/YYYY (02/06/2019) or month spelled out and 4-digit year (February 2019). Finally, don’t use the header and footer for important information, such as contact information, this could be left off by the ATS. Pay close attention to the job announcement, often companies will request a variation on this information or will specifically tell you what type of document is needed.
Continued on Page 14...