Applicant Tracking-Friendly Resumes

If you're searching for a job, as many Americans currently are, there are some things you can do to make your resume more applicant tracking-friendly.

In today's recruiting world, your resume is often not even considered by a human, but by an applicant tracking system. While this makes recruiting easier on companies, it takes away the personal touch of HR and can result in job seekers' resumes being lost in the shuffle.

According to an article by Examiner, most major companies today use some form of ATS to assist with the hiring process. ATS is a type of software designed for recruitment tracking and managing resume data. This means if your resume doesn't include key phrases and information that the ATS is programmed to identify, your resume could easily be overlooked.

"With companies receiving hundreds of resumes daily, an ATS collects job-seeker information from data fields that are submitted on the company Web site, from applicants who apply on Internet job boards or data that is easily retrieved by scanning resumes," the article notes. "An ATS is programmed to sift through and purse this data to identify key phrases that best match skill sets, years of experience, levels of expertise, industry experience, technical skills and other words and phrases."

That means the resumes of the most qualified candidates are submitted to the company's HR department for a further look. Although ATS isn't perfect, it saves the HR company a lot of time and money and still produced high quality candidates.

"Bottom Line," the article adds. "You can easily format your resume to be 'ATS friendly' and increase your chances of being hired. Look closely at the job description and make sure your resume calls out key phrases in its summary statement. If you are unsure, use a professional resume writer or a job-seeking consultant to assist you in rewriting/reformatting your resume."