What is an ATS-friendly CV?

Apologies for the radio silence recently, I'm extremely busy at AE Recruitment and we're having a record-breaking month... which is very welcomed after the nightmare pandemic years however, please forgive me for neglecting my articles 😬

Today, I'm going to cover a topic that's talked about on LinkedIn but there are very few people who understand what it means, or if it's even true.

I did some research to find out where the term came from and it would seem it was made up by CV Writers but I can't be sure.

I've definitely seen CV writing companies say "we'll supply you with an ATS friendly CV" or "Is your CV ATS friendly?"

It would seem as if it's a term used to scare job seekers into parting with their money and promising a higher hit rate because your CV is "ATS friendly"! 🙄

It's rubbish!!

A great CV is a great CV ☀️☀️☀️

It's simple as that. ✅

Believe me when I tell you, if a recruiter or hiring manager has seen your CV and liked it that much, they won't forget you!

Before I explain what "ATS friendly" means I want to give you an insight into what happened during the pandemic

A story about a so-called "CV Writer"

As you may or may not know, the aviation industry amongst others was incredibly badly hit during the pandemic.

Forbes reported that 400,000 airline staff were either furloughed, fired or told they would lose their jobs due to Covid-19.

Without naming names someone in the industry set up a CV Writing company overnight and was charging 500 AED per CV

This person had 1 CV template, asked job seekers to supply a professional photo and just added the photo to a CV that had been prewritten by them.

The wording on every CV was pretty much the same

The font, colour and template were all the same.

I parsed one of the CVs into our database (via a piece of software called a parser which is what recruiters and hr teams use to extract information into searchable fields in a database) and unfortunately, our database was only able to parse under 50% of the information from the document into their record on our database

I was FUMING!!!! 🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬

This person literally took people's money to change a photo on a CV and send it back!!!!!!!

Daylight robbery!

Plus it gives everyone in the CV Writing industry a bad name because bad news travels much quicker than good news, unfortunately!

NOTE - A good CV writer won't scare you into thinking your CV is not "ATS friendly" to win business!

What is ATS Friendly supposed to mean?

Well, simply put, a database can extract information in your CV via a piece of software called a "parser", it also calculates your years of experience... pretty cool eh?!

However CVs sent via a link or are in a PNG, GIF or password protected are unreadable to a database and will mean, in some cases, that a profile will not be created/updated for you.

If a database doesn't have a record of your details then your digital record will not appear in recruiters/hr managers' searches and effectively your CV goes into the abyss, never to be found.

Also, job seekers who use fancy online templates, and iconography instead of words or if you've used an online CV builder, well, then you'll still have issues. So, for example, you may have 10 years of experience but the parser thinks you only have 3.

Unfortunately, we live in a society that wants quick fixes which actually cause more harm than good!

If you want to have your food delivered by an app within 30 mins then it's life-changing but if you want to find a job quickly, cutting corners while creating your CV will have the opposite effect.

How do you know if your CV is "ATS friendly"?

All you have to do is highlight all the text in your CV, paste it into a blank word file or notes and check if it reads the same as what you expected.

If it doesn't match up to your original document then recruiters and hr teams who use parsing systems won't have the right details for you.

Simple!

Solution?

✅ Don't cut corners when it comes to your CV.

✅ Online CV builders and templates may look great to you but they often don't to our databases and in actual fact, most are so overpopulated that no pleasure comes from reading them either, when you have to read through hundreds of CVs a day.

✅ Simplicity, whitespace, an easy-to-read font, and a hint of colour are key to grabbing a hiring manager's attention, rather than distracting overpopulated documents.

✅ bIf you're worried if your CV is "ATS Friendly" copy and paste the text into another document

Other resources to help:

1. Building your personal brand
2. Getting attention during your job search
3. LinkedIn - get the recognition you deserve
4. CV templates

At AE Recruitment we have put together step-by-step guides right through to 1-2-1 personalised support, depending on your needs.

To find out more, please head to our website at www.aerecruitment.ae and for our latest jobs please go to https://aerecruitment.ae/jobs/

Happy job searching Linkies

X