Want to impress the hiring manager with your skills, experience, and can-do attitude? First, you’ll need to get past the applicant tracking system, the software that scans your resume for keywords to determine if you’re a good fit for the position.
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Background screening provider HireRight produced an infographic explaining how candidates can work with the “army of friendly robots” that read their resume before humans ever lay on eyes on it. The bottom line? Think like a bot, and you’ll stand a better chance of crafting a CV that will get the attention of software and recruiter alike.
Here are a few mistakes you’re probably making, that might allow your resume to slip through the cracks:
1. Putting your contact information in your header, and nowhere else.
Some applicant tracking systems won’t catch information in fancy formatting, including headers and footers. As tempting as it is to use technology to jazz up the appearance of your resume, you’ll want to keep a simpler version for submission online.
2. Carrying your personal branding too far.
Infographic resumes are fun to make and impressive to read, but they won’t pass the robot test. Ditto non-standard fonts, graphics, or anything more appropriate to your personal website than a plain resume.
Again, if you’re in love with the infographic style and feel like your personal brand demands it and your industry accepts it, go ahead and make a separate version of your resume to hand out at networking functions or to deliver directly to hiring managers through a colleague.
3. Not using keywords, or using the wrong ones.
You are not merely the summary of your previous job titles, but that doesn’t mean that they’re unimportant. Look at the job listing: you want to make clear any and all commonalities between the description and your experience. Including keywords like the job title, specific skills and certifications, and so on, will help you make the cut.
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The best way to check if your resume is ATS compatible and will make it past screeners is to check it with Jobscan https://goo.gl/Fhzvye which let’s you pre-check against ATS you resume before you apply to the job.