Career Advice from Crypto Careers

Today we are going to explain what is an ATS system, how it can be blocking your CV from reaching the hiring manager and what you can do about it.

Have you heard of the resume black hole?

We have all been there - you browsed through hundreds of jobs until you found the one job you really like. You invest hours in writing a compelling cover letter and submit it, hoping to hear back from the company. And then your resume hits the "black hole" and is never really seen by a human being, just because a machine decided that you are not relevant. Enter the world of the ATS and robots, ignoring your resume.

"Woah, wait a second Alex, what are you talking about, what robots and what is an ATS and how is that related to my job application?" - you are probably asking yourself. Good question! Let's take a few steps back and try to answer these questions. I have worked more than 13 years in the talent acquisition industry, primarily in tech roles so that I can give you a behind the scenes explanation.

What is an ATS:

An applicant tracking system — or ATS, for short — is a type of enterprise software used by HR people (recruiters, headhunters, hiring managers and employers) during the hiring process to collect, sort, scan, and rank the job applications they receive for their open positions. You have to think about the numbers here - a large corporation in the US will get about 200 applications for each job vacancy. The whole HR team can't screen all of these applications, even if they worked 24/7. Enter the ATS - a nifty tool that can do this work for them. Today, even small companies can afford to use an ATS, as the offerings on the market have driven the cost down. As a reference, 95% of Fortune 500 have such a system in place.

How does an ATS work?

Think of an ATS as an electronic Gandalf to the influx of applicants to a job. The software will put your CV through a range of validations and tests to determine whether or not your profile is relevant for the job you are applying to.

What are these validation steps? That could be a range of things, and it depends really on the job you are applying for, as well as the ATS system in use. For some, it can be just checking if specific keywords are present. For others, it can be as much as making sure that an email address is mentioned in the document. For example, a lot of applicants put such information into the header or footer of a document to save space. Although it looks good, it might cause parsing issues, and voila, the hiring manager will not even get to read your application.

How can I optimize my resume to pass the ATS screening?

To write a perfect, ATS optimized revenue, you have to take a lot of things into consideration:

• Are you using the correct keywords;
• Is your file format machine-readable;
• Is the template you are using ATS friendy?
• Too much information in the footer/header?
• Is your document hierarchy correct?

Enter TopResume. So, what is TopResume? They are the world's largest resume-writing company. The company employs an international team of experts that have reviewed millions of resumes and helped over 300,000 professionals get more interviews and get their dream jobs faster. And now, you can get a resume review for free (no hidden or added cost, no need to provide a credit card and no freemium models). Just follow the link and submit your resume and you will receive feedback in a few days.