Are you doing these seven things to make your resume ATS-friendly?

Getting your resume past the ATS can be a big hurdle, especially when you are applying for a job in a highly competitive industry. ATSs are used by employers to scan resumes for preset keywords and content. This helps the employer identify whether you have the right qualifications for the job. Also, some employers use ATS parameters to eliminate job seekers who have certain undesirable information listed on their resumes, such as a far zip code.

Here are seven effective ways to make your resume ATS-friendly and get seen by the right employer:

Use standard resume section headings

When designing your resume, it’s important to name your resume sections with the right terms. ATSs are trained to scan your resume for standard resume section titles such as “Summary,” “Work experience,” etc. Using creative section titles in place of standard headings may cause the ATS to miss out on entire sections.

Add the right keywords

Keywords are crucial for the ATS optimization of your resume. In fact, they might even be the most essential things for an ATS-friendly resume. Review the employer’s job description carefully to identify important keywords. Then, use these keywords to describe your qualifications on your resume. You should mention the keywords in the right frequency and context to get noticed by employers.

Use simple formatting

Fancy, graphic-rich resumes rarely make it past the ATS. ATS has trouble parsing documents with complex formatting. This is why always encourage you to use clean, simple formatting for your resume. Use simple, professional fonts to write the content of your resume. Also, stay clear of graphics, tables, graphs, charts, clipart, images, photographs, etc.

Use standard bullets

Does your resume have a lot of impressive achievements? The best way to bring them out is to use bullet points. When selecting bullet points, go for the standard simple bullet points. Circles and squares are both fine, as long as they are simple. If you use fancier symbols as bullet points, the ATS might encounter a parsing error.

Go for a chronological resume

ATSs are great at reading chronological and hybrid resumes. They will have trouble reading a functional resume. If your resume is in the functional format, the ATS might miss important sections during parsing, making you appear underqualified for the role.

Avoid headers and footers

Certain ATSs have trouble reading the information listed within the headers and footers of a resume. Therefore, you should always take care to mention important information within the main body of your resume instead of within the headers or footers. However, you can still use headers or footers to make your resume visually appealing.

Spell out acronyms

To ensure that no keyword gets left behind, you should take the precaution of spelling out acronyms and abbreviations. When you have to list down an abbreviation on your resume, always list both the short and long forms of the word.