ATS is an acronym that stands for Applicant Tracking System, which is essentially the management software used by medium-sized companies to track candidates. Your resume is first “read” and interpreted by an automated system that filters, rejects, and decides to ignore resumes when it does not consider them suitable.
Once, a consultant from a large staffing agency literally told me, “I know that for a computer engineer, writing that they can use Word is trivial, but if they don’t write it, the ATS will reject them for office positions.” And that made me think. The first screeners we interact with are not human. We cannot expect understanding and independent judgment; we will not be “understood” once read. Not until we pass the automated filters.
Is your resume ready for this playing field? If not, how can you make it ready?