A spectre is haunting graduates - the spectre of the applicant tracking system!
The applicant tracking system (henceforth ATS) is a modern solution to an old problem which has created modern problems for old solutions. If you apply for a job in tech, finance, research, management, etc, chances are that your cv/resume(*) is digitally filtered before ever being seen by a human person. This filtration can be smart (LLM), or simple (keyword scan).
These filters are a cost-cutting measure for companies to reduce the number of recruiter hours needed to hire a good applicant. As in natural selection, the hiree doesn’t need to be the best fit, just good enough, so companies can afford to automatically reject lots of good CVs. According to an eye-tracking study in 2018, the average recruiter skims the average CV in 7.4 seconds (**). It’s also a fair assumption that in the current job market, the best applicant will know about these filters, and will be able to pass them.
Simple filters can trip up while parsing your CV. If your CV has complicated shape objects, non-standard typefaces, or has any sort of double column structure, the filter may incorrectly parse your resume and toss it out. Especially ruinous are tables; lot’s of pretty CVs are structured by using a table, but the rows which visually align may not align in the table, so the simple filter will get confused. These filters can also be exceptionally clever, we should expect Google/Meta/Amazon to successfully parse any CV that a human could, but again they do not need the best, just good enough. Why devote any time and effort to these filters when you know you will recieve thousands of applications?
Naturally, applicants are concerned about these filters, which has created a demand for applicant side ATS filters. The idea being that somebody can submit their resume online and have it graded to see if they’ve successfully created an ATS-proof CV. There are many services for this but I’m going to focus here on careerset and resumeworded. If you take the time to use these two services, it will become apparent that they are running the exact same software. I’m going to assume that, therefore, these two services use the same or similar ATS filters.
I’ve been lucky enough that my univesity has provided careerset pro accounts to the students, so I can use the service to its full extent. I’ve been working on an ATS-proof resume recently which scores a healthy 87/100. My old CV scored an 80/100, so to a certain extent I’ve been wasting my time. The old CV had complicated formatting, colours and shapes. It seems as though this doesn’t effect ATS as much as articles would have you believe.
But here’s the thing: the same CV which scores 80 on the pro service, scores a 49 on the free service. There has been no alteration of the CV or the software. The scam is clear to see: People are scared of ATS, and will check their resumes on the free services, only to find that they are barely legible. This incentivises them to purchase a premium resume builder, or ATS-proofing service. Once they’ve dished out the funds, the service gives a more honest reading of the CV and the consumer feels satisfied in their purchase. Pretty exploitative strategy but unfortunately no surprise to anyone.
(*) It seems as though on this side of the atlantic, Resume is the american term, and CV is the correct term. However if I understand correctly, americans view Resume and CV as having two distinct meanings, where a Resume is concise and a CV is verbose. I’ll just be using the two interchangebly here.
(**) Do not trust “studies” from the recruiting market. This number is cited everywhere but is ultimately incredibly dubious. The “study” is basically a slideshow that gives no context on the meaning of what they’re saying and dedicates like 4 lines to methodology. These are salespeople, not scientists.