Transcription
If the ATS can't read your resume, it will be rejected before a human ever sees it. I know because I was the former chief growth officer at WeWork, where I read tens of thousands of résumés and personally hired thousands of people. Now, I'm the founder of Teal, and I know firsthand how ATS systems actually work. Here's the truth about the ATS, exactly how to write a resume that beats it, and at the end, I'll share a fatal mistake to avoid. Let's dive in.
So, what's an ATS? After more than 25 years of hiring people, I realized that most people don't understand how to actually land a job. And it all starts with the resume. And interacting with an ATS is step one. Most people think they understand what an ATS is, but they really don't. An ATS stands for applicant tracking system. The truth is, it's not a digital gatekeeper designed to control your fate and reject you. It's more like a workflow management system and a digital filing cabinet. Think of it like a database. There's actually a lot of misconception about the ATS that are affecting your job search. But since in this video it's about beating the ATS, I'm going to break down all the myths in my next video.
The ATS was created to manage the massive influx of online applications and to help companies track who applied, who is in which round of what interview. Sometimes that might be like six or seven depending on the company, who is scheduling the interviews, who's attending them, and then it's about who's moved forward and unfortunately who's been rejected or as a system might call it managing the dispositions. But here's what's actually happening. Recruiters search for specific terms like project manager plus agile plus budget. They're looking for keywords. They want to make sure you have the abilities that they need for the job. If your resume doesn't include those keywords, you won't show up in the results. It's not some magical AI looking for them. It's a person looking for the words that the hiring manager told them they care a lot about. Might be a hard skill. It might be a soft skill, but you want to make sure that those are on there. It's not being used to automatically make rejections. It's like being filed in the wrong folder. you're not being found. You're invisible, which means you probably won't be considered for the role.
As someone who's hired thousands of people, it's important to understand the ATS from the company's perspective. I used an ATS when I was a chief growth officer, and I can tell you big companies just see it as a tool to organize applications, build the application forms, and to quickly search the database of current and past applicants.
Now, let me tell you about knockout questions. The truth is, you can get rejected even if you are qualified because of how you filled out the job application form. Companies use simple knockout questions. For example, are you legally allowed to work in the US or do you have a specific degree? These are usually true false questions that you are answering yourself on the application form. This is the primary way the system will autoreject you. It's not resume scanning or inferring it with AI. To make it feel more human, a lot of companies actually even use a feature that delays the rejection. So even though it was automatic, it might go out 24 hours after you applied. So, you get the sense that it wasn't automatic. And almost every ATS has this feature. Some even have the ability to not allow you to send emails on the weekends. These are all things that companies think about when it comes to crafting a candidate experience, and it's what the ATS helps them do.
Another thing to consider is when it comes to the ATS, the company size really matters. Not all companies use them. We talk about them as this universal thing that every company has, and that's just not the case. Smaller companies might use a Google sheet or Survey Monkey. The bigger the company, the more complex the hiring process and the more likely they are to use an expensive, intricate ATS.
Before I get into the exact strategies for beating the ATS, knows that the ATS is just the first scan. Once you make it through, hiring managers are actually looking at each and every application. And they're making judgment calls and they are judging you on a lot of things that you may not expect. I want you to land the job. So, I'm sharing what goes on behind closed doors in my next video. So, make sure you subscribe if you haven't yet.
The first strategy is the keyword strategy. Recruiters and hiring managers use keywords to search the ATS database. If you want to beat the ATS, forget about all the ATS hacks you've heard about. Do this instead. Read the job description carefully. Identify the key terms that they repeat. Use their exact language in your resume and match your experience to their needs. If they say Canva, don't say graphic software, say Canva. They're not going to give you the benefit of the doubt. They want quick and easy decision-making.
Now, you might be thinking, where do I get the keywords? You need to pull them from the job description and in this order. Let me show you how to do that in the teal job tracker. When you bookmark jobs with the teal job tracker, we automatically group them into the sections for you, which is going to really help you highlight your keywords. The first section you want to go to is the requirements. These are the musthaves. They're the highest priority. These are the things you have to have. Assume someone will match all of them. So, you must too if you really want to be considered. And you can see this job requires a bachelor's degree, five years of experience in product management. Teal will automatically highlight the hard skills, soft skills, and any other skills it detects. Then next, you want to go to the preferred qualifications. These are the nice to have, their second priority. These are the things that they would love for you to have and will be used as differentiators. See, in this example, they are going to give priority to anyone that's got experience with AI. That doesn't mean that you're going to be ruled out, but the candidates that have it are definitely going to get preference over those that don't. Then come the responsibilities. These are the things you're going to do. I would say they're lower in priority, but they're still going to be important. These are what you'll do in the role. They're less critical than what you've already proven you can do. But remember, they wrote it because they want it. So, if you can show that you've done these things before, and they don't have to train you on how to do them, obviously those candidates are going to get preference.
Here's a pro tip. Look for the keywords that appear in multiple sections like requirements and responsibilities. That signifies that this is stuff they really care about. In the teal job tracker, you can group the keywords by category, which is hard skills, soft skills, and other. And then you'll see words that show up in multiple sections. As an example, data governance is in the responsibilities and the preferred qualifications. It shows up four times. It really matters to them. That's going to be a keyword you want on your resume. You should customize your resume for each job application. And I know this can take a while, but luckily you can use AI tools like Teal to identify the most important semantic terms, technologies, and activities within the job description. Look, a little warning though. Don't lie. If you don't have the abilities, just don't waste your time. If you do have the abilities, but they aren't on your resume yet, then go ahead and add that content onto your resume. This is where updating a master resume with every application will really help you have a full flushed out version of your career history and everything that you've done.
Here's strategy two, the skim scan study formula. Your resume needs to be optimized for three speeds. The skim 2 to 3 seconds is the initial glance. You want to prioritize the target title, your professional summary, and the companies and titles that you worked at. Those are usually like the bold sections that people just immediately look for to make sure that you have the abilities. What they're looking for is does this person have the right title or target career path. Here's a solution. Clearly feature a target title and a strong professional summary that aligns immediately with the job. They want to see that you've done the job before. Remember, companies hire for what you did, not what you want to do.
Next is the scan. Once they see that you actually have the abilities, then they're going to scan it and they're going to spend around 10 seconds on that. The recruiter is actively searching for specific keywords. The priority here is keyword density. What the company might be asking, have they used the specific technology and skills? For example, in social media, do they have Tik Tok? In marketing, do they have Canva? They want to make sure you have the abilities that are required for the role. They don't want to have to invest in training you for the job they're hiring for. They want to save that for your growth. Here's a solution. Use AI to ensure the right keywords from the JD are integrated naturally into your resume. Don't just spatter a bunch of keywords on there. make sure they flow naturally with the content and they make sense.
And the last is the study. It's a full read. This is where they're going to spend a minute plus. They're reading every detail and I'd say the core of it is the bullet points. That is the meat of the resume. What the company's going to ask here is, is this person compelling and competent? In other words, can they do this job well? And are they going to make us better as a company? And are they going to increase our chances of success? Here's the solution. Every bullet point must earn its right to be read. Ensure your first bullet point under each position has the impact metrics and strong verbs. Sometimes people think every bullet has to have metrics, but really what I would encourage you to do is first bullet under each position needs to be stellar. Make sure it's your best one. The order of the bullets actually matters. And that's not because of the AI. Just think about how people read. Reread top to bottom. So, you want to make sure that first bullet when they're skimming is so good that they want to keep reading the rest of them. I learned these three hiring stages after hiring thousands of people over my 25 year career. And you can watch more of my learnings in this video. But before I cover the fatal ATS mistakes, I have to mention AI because it's the world we live in today.
Strategy three, use AI as a rigid coach. Paste your resume and job description into an AI tool and ask it to scan and be strict. You might write in, "How many of the requirements do I satisfy? Why would they not hire me? Are there any gaps I haven't addressed?" If you craft a prompt with those statements, it's going to help you objectively understand if you're qualified for the job and what you're missing. Landing a job is a numbers and strategy game. And to increase your chances of getting hired, I built Teal to give you an edge because I know firsthand what hiring managers and companies really care about. Teal is an AI tool that takes your resume, scans it, and gives you the exact format, keywords, requirements, and addresses any gaps that you didn't see before so you can get the perfect resume in minutes and finally land the job. If you're ready to simplify your search, you can use most of Teal for free for life. And we have a special discount for YouTube subscribers for Teal Plus. It's in the description below and it'll unlock all the features.
These are some of the most common fatal mistakes that don't pass the ATS. Avoid anything that is not straight text. This adds complexity and risk. Here are some examples. Two columns. They're a major problem and they often scramble the data flow. Raster or vector elements, icons, images, clip arts, backgrounds, those are generally not great. Advanced functionality like tables, floating text boxes. These are common in Google Docs, Word, and Canva. They disrupt the flow of the document. I also made a video explaining the big issues with Canva templates. If you're thinking about using Canva, I suggest you watch it after this one. Next is lines and borders. They add no value and can interfere with the parsing. Then comes file formats. PDF is preferred because it is fixed, guaranteed format consistency, but still fully parsible. Avoid doc risks like a word document. Docx is the file format. Word docs are editable, meaning a recruiter could accidentally delete something or maybe the text gets changed. Never use image formats. PNG or JPEG files are pixels and not rich text. The ATS can't read them. The easiest way to check if your resume is parsible is to highlight all the text and paste it into a simple text editor like notes or notepad and see if the order and structure remains intact. If it gets all jumbled up, the ATS is probably going to jumble it, too. Thanks for watching and I'll see you in the next one.