While some firms would try to have you believe that there is one standard ATS, and that whatever score they give you will apply to every other ATS in the world, it is worth remembering that different ATS systems churn out different scores anyway.
Click here to discover more about discrepancies with ATS checkers and ATS systems.
We did some testing with this a few years ago and found some quite wide variations with various systems using exactly the same test CV. The only real constant was that there was a lack of consistency!
This isn’t so surprising as the algorithms different ATS programs use vary. Even at base level it can be quite different. For example, some ATS systems match against entries they have in their database for broad ‘job type’ whereas others can be more sophisticated and do things such as check for keyword density against job specifications. We even found significant variations in the results just by tweaking a few things with the same test CV. For example, some systems were case sensitive and others were not.
There are various ATS tools available if you search online, but while the sites often give the impression that they are doing you a service, frequently the opposite is true, and it’s often just a marketing gimmick to entice you to buy a particular service of theirs or of a partner company.
While some people get spooked by ATS checker scores and subsequently get fixated with it, it is usually counterproductive to do so. Such people sometimes end up engaging a ATS checker CV firm (or their partner) to write their CVs for ATS systems, but it’s a dangerous ploy to write your CV for a machine when the actual decision-maker is a real person.
ATS is a reality, so your CV needs to be relevant to the target job or job type, and you need to demonstrate it is relevant using typed words, and not just words embedded in images.
But many people already do that.
Yes, they don’t all necessarily do it as well as they could or should, but many people do include enough relevant terms and keywords to demonstrate suitability to a machine.
You are an intelligent executive.
Think about it logically.
If you ran a recruitment firm, would you want your ATS to accept, or reject, relevant applications?
If your CV is relevant for the job in question, then why wouldn’t it find its way to the application pile? Recruitment is expensive and employers are not stupid.
It’s also worth remembering who the real decision maker is.
Is it a machine? Is it a recruiter? Or is it someone else?
It’s a relevant question because some candidates end up changing their CV (usually for the worse) just because an ‘advisor’ with an ulterior motive gave them a score on a system that, in all likelihood, won’t be the same one as used by the actual decision maker. Indeed, it might be nothing like the system used by the real decision maker.
And essentially, the real decision maker is the employer, or HR executive who works for the employer. Ultimately, this is a real person. It is not a machine. And it is not a rep who works for a free ATS checker organisation.
We’ve been doing this a long time, and so regularly fix the CVs of candidates who had previously engaged other companies to create an “ATS compliant” CV for them. While these CVs do come in different shapes, sizes and guises, in our experience, they are all flawed. Common issues include repetitiveness. They also tend not to engage the reader or read as naturally as they should. Most aren’t real sales and marketing documents either. We end up ripping them up and rewriting them again from scratch.
The only real way to cover yourself for not only ATS but also the real decision-maker (employer) is to do what we do; namely create a real sales and marketing document with the real decision maker in mind while simultaneously (and naturally) weaving the right keywords into it.
Of course, you’ll never know the exact algorithm of the ATS your CV will go through for each individual application (or the score for that matter) – only the particular recruiter or employer will know that. However, there is a good chance that it will be different to that of free ATS checkers with ulterior motives. Notably, even common-sense dictates that if your CV is relevant, and it includes most the main keywords, with good density, then it should get past any ATS worth its salt.
After that, you then have to contend with the real decision maker. And for that, as established, you need a real sales and marketing document that engages and entices a real human being, and not a machine.
This way of working is more painstaking and manually intensive than the alternative of just stuffing keywords willy-nilly, as some people/firms do, but it’s also more effective which is why we go to the extra time and effort for our clients.
In short, pretty much everything.
We regularly receive ‘ATS compliant’ CVs that failed to hit the mark in the competitive executive job market. There are usually lots of issues, not just unnatural keyword stuffing and poor phrasing, but in many other aspects of the CV too.
Click to see some common (major and minor) issues that we fix.