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How to Beat the ATS
124 Plays1 month ago
You've heard of the ATS, you might have even been given advice on how to tailor your resume so that you can beat the ATS. But what does that really mean? How much of an application process is driven by AI decision making and how much is done by a human? I break this all down with my good friend and former co-worker Vic. Strap in, this one is a wild ride that will challenge everything LinkedIn has told you.
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Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast 'I Lost My Job'
00:00:01
Speaker
You may have lost your job, but you don't have to go through it alone. Come listen to the real, raw stories of guests who open up about their layoff experience and what it's like searching for a job in one of the most unpredictable markets in history.
00:00:15
Speaker
And while you're here, you may just pick up some job hunting tips along the way. This is I Lost My Job.
Understanding Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS)
00:00:34
Speaker
Hello everyone. Welcome back to i Lost My Job. Today we're going to talk about a topic that is very near and dear to my little recruiting heart.
00:00:45
Speaker
Applicant tracking systems, otherwise known as an ATS. I'm joined by a very good friend and former coworker of mine, Vic, to talk all about what an ATS is, what it does, and how it's impacting your job search.
00:01:01
Speaker
Let's jump in.
00:01:04
Speaker
Vic, it is so good to have you here. I'm so excited to see you. Thank you so much for for joining me to chat about the ATS today. You know how we feel about ATSs, so I'm very excited. and very excited chat with you. Thanks for having me.
00:01:22
Speaker
Oh my God, I know the mythical ATS, the mysterious. I know. Is it a robot? Is it a human? Is it both? Who knows? What is We are going to dispel all of the myths today, and I'm really excited to dive into it with you.
Vic's Experience with ATS Systems
00:01:41
Speaker
um But first, before we jump all the way in, um why don't you tell us a little bit about you and your professional background? Yeah, absolutely. Well, again, Jackie, thanks for having me. Some of you may know that me and Jackie used to work together, um but my background is all in recruiting. So I started off in staffing um and then moved into corporate recruiting for various different industries, various different companies, you name it. So I think I i want to say I've worked with almost every other system, any of every other system.
00:02:13
Speaker
And I have my favorites and I have some, I'm just excited to talk about this. You you know how we feel about ATSs. Yes, yes. And it's safe to say that you are very familiar with an ATS.
What is an ATS and Which Ones Stand Out?
00:02:26
Speaker
So um first I want to ask, can you explain what is an ATS? What does it stand for? And I am curious to hear about your favorites or not so favorites.
00:02:39
Speaker
I love it. This is awesome. So applicant tracking system, right? This is where your resume goes when you're a candidate and you apply. It goes into our our database, so to say, right? Favorites and not favorites. so i'm going to say Workday is my least favorite.
00:02:53
Speaker
And not only because it's meant to be an HRS, which is a HR system. Right. So difference ah for those of you who are not in hr or recruiting, ATS is more of a recruiting tool.
00:03:07
Speaker
And AHRAS is, you know, you think about payroll and benefits and all of the ah HR stuff that goes into there. So it works really well as an HR tool, but not so well on the ATS side. If you ever apply for a job with Workday, you will know that you have to recreate an account every single time and that's just that's bananas for job seekers it's just too much it's too much it's too much for them yeah too much for me right i'm gonna say that there's a lot of really cool tools out there i personally i'm excited to to check out ashby i haven't used it but i've heard so many great things about it's
00:03:42
Speaker
And I have a recruiter friend that works there. So maybe, maybe I'm a little biased, but my favorite, my favorite is greenhouse. I mean, hands down, it's just the easiest to use. From a recruiting standpoint, I think also, and as an applicant, it's not too clunky.
00:03:57
Speaker
Yes. And I will say, so to your point with Workday, it is, you know, when you're using or applying with a Workday system, because you have that, like, you have to create a new account every single time. And then you're going through like, yeah what feels like 20 different pages of filling out information just to send in your application. Like it's, yeah it's nuts.
00:04:21
Speaker
And copy and pasting it. Oh, yeah. Yep. And with, I will say with greenhouse, so I am i am also ah greenhouse stan, if you will. And um they have come out with new functionality called My Greenhouse for candidates. I'm going to give them a free shout out here. yeah I love They recently released this new My Greenhouse functionality where you can upload your resume into basically a candidate profile of Greenhouse.
00:04:48
Speaker
And then any company who is using Greenhouse, you have that option to auto-fill your resume. And then companies can actually turn on functionality if they want to let you track your application with them.
Why Are Some Job Applications So Long?
00:05:03
Speaker
And they can elect to share updates. love not every company does elect to do that but the option is there so um i will i will say greenhouse has made it very nice and easy for candidates to just go in scoot in their application and um get out so they're not spending five hours trying to put something yeah i agree and i feel like they keep up to date again
00:05:28
Speaker
The company I'm with right now, we're transitioning into Greenhouse. Love it. I mean, I just every time there's a new feature and I know we used it together and there's even more new features to your point. So I think it's I just think it's great that they're keeping up with the times and not staying in the old. Right.
00:05:43
Speaker
Yes. Yeah. Keeping up, making it easier for candidates and making it less of an arduous process. At least that's the hope. That's the hope. Well, when so when candidates are applying for jobs, talk to me about why is it sometimes applications are quick and simple?
00:06:01
Speaker
Why is it that sometimes they are just like pages and pages long? How does that work? Where do the differences come in? Yeah. So when it comes to different ATSs, so first, I think we should note just for everybody who doesn't and work in the HRA, TA space, right, in the recruiting space, you know what company, what ATS you're applying with.
00:06:24
Speaker
When you click into the job, whether you found it on LinkedIn or any of these other job platforms, it says it right on the on the top of it. Right. So it'll be like a lever or greenhouse or workday. So if you're trying to figure out, hey, what system am I really using?
00:06:37
Speaker
That's kind of the ah key. Right. um So I just want to point that out because i I know that that question comes up a lot. Like, how do I know if it doesn't say there it's in it's in the URL? So what happens when when ah you apply to a job and you're filling out all of these fields? Essentially, as a recruiter, what we're hoping for is to get all of your information, right? And that's the goal of the applicant tracking system. That's what it's meant for.
00:07:01
Speaker
Again, some ATSs are just a little bit more clunky. And so when we see the profile on our end from like a workday, and you're filling out all of those pages, we see it scroll down. Like we can see your ah resume as an attachment, but we also see all the words that go in there.
00:07:19
Speaker
And so and with some companies, right, let's say we've got two companies that are both using Workday, but for one of them, I might have an application that's say...
00:07:29
Speaker
three pages long. And then the other one, I'm having to fill out all of these like extra questions and extra information. And like, they're asking me different questions about do you identify as X, Y, and z So how do, how is it that you have like the same ATS, but different sets of questions you're answering?
00:07:48
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. So yourre the company decides on those, right? So the TA team, which is talent acquisition, decides on what questions they want to put in there. Some questions have that voluntary form that you can fill out for tracking purposes to get that data and see who's applying to to our jobs.
00:08:07
Speaker
And then sometimes they ask you, why do you want to work here? And all of those fun questions, right, where you're filling all of that out. That again comes from from the recruiting team or the company or leadership. Right. So that's why you see a difference there. It's it's what the company or the recruiter wants to see.
00:08:23
Speaker
So that's where those questions come from. You can add those in yourself and decide on on what they are. Right. so So that's being done on the back end, right? Like the recruiters for each job, for each company, they're deciding like, do I want to put in a question about your sales experience or the everybody's seemingly favorite question? Like, why do you want to work at our company? Like, yeah why us? And you're like, well, because I need money and a job. I need a job.
00:08:54
Speaker
I need somewhere to work. I need an income. That should be a good enough reason. Totally. And sometimes the company just had had that, right? So you've got new recruiters that come in and they've just been doing things like this for a while, right? So they have that question up there.
00:09:10
Speaker
Sometimes I think it's it makes it a little bit easier when you have so many applicants, right? And you're looking for, like you said, sales, right? And you're like, hey, have you worked with HubSpot, right? Or you'll get questions like, do you have three years of experience with, let's use tech, Python, right? You know, if you're in and in machine learning.
00:09:27
Speaker
um So answering those questions make it easier for the recruiter to go in there and take a look. And again, I say recruiter. Because we're talking about not knockout questions, which I know you'll get to, but we're talking about questions that we, as the talent team, are looking at to kind of get that quick response, right? If somebody says, no, I haven't worked with HubSpot, this is required for the role in the sales position, I'm probably not even opening up their resume, to be honest with you. I'm seeing that answer and I might just be rejecting. But again, my eyes are on it and I'm the one reading it.
How Recruiters Review Resumes
00:09:58
Speaker
Yep. And that actually leads me right into my next question, which was once a candidate submits their resume, what happens to it? Where does it go? What information as a recruiter do you get to see?
00:10:11
Speaker
Talk me through that a little bit. Yeah, I think it depends on what ATS you use. So sometimes you get an email if you set it up. And again, this is preferences. I want to mention this is human preferences. And I make that difference because me as a human, like if I want to see ah people applying to my job. So maybe I have that email set up and it'll say, Jackie, you should apply to your job. But you know, maybe I'll have that setting on maybe that annoys me and I don't want more emails. So I don't have that.
00:10:36
Speaker
Right. So I don't see how many people applied through email. But when I go in there, I see a number of applicants and they go into this. Some people might call it a black hole because right now we have thousands and thousands of applicants, but they go into this pool of candidates for that role. Right. And you're you're essentially opening up every profile and looking through that. And again, i want to really stress.
00:10:58
Speaker
that that's that's us here in Talent. We're the ones going through that. So whatever setting you have as a recruiter, whether you're getting that email and you're opening it up right away because you're trying to see who your candidates are, whether that's just going into the rec and managing it. um and And again, you can set any filters up in there. Some people like to go through it and say, hey, I'm going to look at the people who applied most recently. And some people like to set up a filter that'd be like, I want to to see the first people that applied.
00:11:24
Speaker
So it's really... I'm going to say it's it's hard. It's really a recruiter's preference on how they want to organize their themselves in the ATS. Yep. And so let's say you get to a profile, right? And again, realizing that every ATS kind of visually does this a little bit differently. But let's say you're in the ATS and you see the profile of somebody who applied.
00:11:46
Speaker
They've answered these you know different questions that have been asked. They've uploaded a resume. Some people get concerned about like something called parsing, which is when you apply and the ATS automatically takes information from your resume and fills it into things like your name or your education history or your work history.
00:12:06
Speaker
So do you even see resumes? Like, is that even a thing? Or do you only see that information, those like fields that have been filled in? I, again, I'm going to say this is preference.
00:12:18
Speaker
I like to open the resume. I do. I like to open the resume. So, ah you know, we talk about kind of the, the, the ATS, you know, i rarely, I rarely really look at those parse fields because sometimes they're wacky depending on what ATS you're using, right? Sometimes they they don't come in right.
00:12:36
Speaker
I like to go into whatever attachment is there because that's your format, right? That's your resume. You have it in your format. Maybe it's in Google Docs or maybe it's in Word or please don't use Notepad, but like maybe it's in a different format, you know? Maybe you have this, maybe it's a creative role and you have this really pretty resume, right? And so I, my personal preference is I go directly to the resume.
00:13:00
Speaker
I like to open the resume up and I like to a scan for fit. So you can actually see like the the document that somebody uploads their resume, whether it's like a PDF or a doc file, you have access to that.
00:13:13
Speaker
Absolutely. Okay. So you could download it. So even if the parsing was off, let's say that like somebody's education messed up and got mixed up with their work experience.
00:13:25
Speaker
If you see that, you can still see the original document that they submitted as their resume. Absolutely. So then people shouldn't really worry too much about the parsing, given that your resume is still there on file in the ATS. Yeah.
00:13:39
Speaker
As long as you attach it, right? when you Whenever whatever ATS you're using, there's an option. Same with cover letters, right? There's that option to upload your resume from whatever file. And so it just
The Impact of High Application Volumes
00:13:50
Speaker
it's just a link to a file. So you can download it at any time or open it up, right? And right in the system.
00:13:56
Speaker
I'm going to say, I feel like the parsing is such a such a taboo thing. Like i rarely really look at what comes up from there. Like I like to go right to the resume. That's where the meat is, right? I agree. i agree. I'm a big resume first person too. i typically go in and I'll see, and again, depending on the ATS, but Greenhouse will give you like the the visual of the resume and up top, they'll give you kind of those unique questions that you've set up to answer. yeah And it makes it very easy on the recruiting end to go in and say, okay,
00:14:28
Speaker
here's this person's answer to why do you want to work here? Or here's this person's answer to their sales experience. And then right underneath that, there is the visual of their resume that you can either look and try to read it, although sometimes it gets a little small, or you can very easily click on it and it just automatically expands the resume. And then you have the whole thing right there, raw format,
00:14:51
Speaker
ready to read and go through. so it is, I think there's a lot of misconception that when you send in your resume, that all that the recruiting team is seeing is either parsed information or things you filled out on the fields or anything.
00:15:07
Speaker
and I think people don't always realize that a lot of us do look straight at that raw file format that you submitted. So even if things do get parsed incorrectly,
00:15:18
Speaker
We're not sitting there saying, the ATS parsed this incorrectly, so I'm throwing the information out. We know it's not perfect. We know. Trust. We know it's not a perfect system. and We really do. We like to dive into that. Okay.
00:15:34
Speaker
This is, you know, this is some information, but show me the resume, show me the meat of what you've been doing. Tell me your story. Right. So it's not like resumes are just getting like tossed out or not looked at. In fact, that probably is one of the first things that do get looked at when you apply. with that You know, what have you done?
00:15:55
Speaker
So, yeah. No, I agree. I agree with that. and And just to kind of wrap up parsing, as, again, human beings, it is just easier for us to read it like that. Like, I mean, for me, whatever that format is, it doesn't, it's it's harder for me to find what I'm looking for.
00:16:11
Speaker
So don't know. Don't worry about it. Don't worry about the parsing. I agree. I agree. The things like the custom application questions about like, Do you have the sales experience? Have you ever worked with this technology?
00:16:25
Speaker
Those are helpful from a quick glance, um but I'm with you. it it is recruiter preference, but I personally prefer to go in and read the resume. I love hearing people's stories, whether that's you know somebody telling it to me on the phone or getting to see it in their resume. I'm a big story person, so I want to read that. I want to see like i want to see you describe to me what you've done, and then I can take that information and say, okay,
00:16:51
Speaker
How relevant is this to what we're trying to fill? Absolutely. And like, I don't care about your copy and paste skills. You could have a beautiful section. I don't, I don't care about those skills, right? Like you could have a beautiful, you know, you put all of those things in there. I'm probably not like, don't spend so much time. That's I think the waste of in my personal opinion.
00:17:11
Speaker
That's the waste of time when you're filling out these applications, you know, you're like, Oh, I don't want it to get weird in here. Like, I'm not really, i don't care. don't Yes. I'm with you. A lot of people agonize over what's the best format to the resume and like yeah visually how should it look and um we'll get into this, but like how what format or look does it need to be in to get into the ATS properly? And like I said, we'll we'll dive into that, but I'm with you. Honestly, sometimes simpler is better.
00:17:42
Speaker
There is nothing wrong, in my opinion, with a straight black and white resume. I am more concerned about the content that you're putting in those bullet points, like text telling me how you're qualified for the job versus what your resume looks like.
00:18:00
Speaker
You can be a beautiful resume artist, but not have the skills for the job. Like don't spend your time on making it beautiful. Spend your time on making it meaningful.
00:18:11
Speaker
Right. And readable. I think that that's the other point. Like, think about how you would look at this and are you able to read it? Like, I think sometimes people are like, oh, do I do the columns here or do I do them over here? Does this get wacky? And I think to your point, like, the best way is like, is this, is ah is somebody else able to read this and follow along with my story, right? So...
00:18:32
Speaker
Yes. Well, and now you and I know that it's both very tough in the job market and it's tough for candidates to get their resumes seen. Why is that, right?
00:18:43
Speaker
Candidates are submitting their resumes. Shouldn't people be looking at it, reviewing at it? Like, why aren't candidates being seen? think there's just so much volume, right? There's just so much volume out there.
00:18:55
Speaker
So it just gets challenging. And sometimes it's just timing, right? and And this is unfortunate to say. You could do everything right with your resume. And this is why I don't want people to leave this, this meeting, right. And be like, Oh, they said not to worry about the resume. We're just not going to do that.
00:19:11
Speaker
You, you, you absolutely should be mindful of it. Like you said, it should be meaningful, but sometimes you can do everything right. And it's just timing, right. It's just, it's just timing. And I think other things that you should focus on when you're looking at jobs and and again, talking about that meaningful purpose when you're applying to jobs, like Is it a remote role?
00:19:30
Speaker
If it's not a remote role, can you relocate to that area? That might be a question on there, right? Do you fit in the salary range? Think about all the reasons that you could potentially be dispositioned because you're not aligned with the role, right? You know, and there could be many factors, right?
00:19:46
Speaker
And then you could be aligned. You could have all of the right things and you just don't get a take up. You don't have a look at you because volume's there. And maybe the recruiters already have candidates in the mix, right? That they're moving forward with.
00:19:58
Speaker
Maybe the team spread too thin, right? um And you just don't have a lot of recruiters on the team and they're just they're just getting through as many as they can, right? Because again, i cannot stress this, like human beings are looking at this. So if your resume doesn't get looked at, it's because honestly, there's not enough hours in the day or or what the recruiter needs to do to take a look at this. Like you could be a qualified candidate, right? And just timing is against you.
00:20:23
Speaker
Yes. and And you and I both know, I mean, we've seen this since COVID. There are some positions, especially your early career positions, your analysts, your coordinators, your associates.
00:20:37
Speaker
I have seen positions get upwards of 4,000 applicants. 4,000 in a day. and And you have to also realize that for most companies, there's typically one recruiter assigned to one job. It is most often the setup where you as a recruiter are assigned a job and that is your job to manage.
00:20:59
Speaker
It's not like the whole team is all managing every single rec. It typically tends to be that one-to-one assignment. When you think of it that way, having one person look through thousands of applications, you would have to spend all day and night to keep up with the sheer volume that's coming in.
00:21:19
Speaker
And that's if you're only giving people like five to seven seconds, right? You're not giving tons of time. You're hurrying up at to just get through them all.
00:21:30
Speaker
So That, you know, it's hard to get seen just because the numbers out there, the number of people who are applying to jobs ever since COVID layoffs happened is astronomical, right? And you're you're not always getting in front of human eyes, you know?
00:21:48
Speaker
It's just not always possible. Right. And that's where I see out of this drive to be like, OK, so I'm not always getting seen by a recruiter. What do I need to do to get seen? Right. That first trick before you even get an interview, you need somebody to see you.
Can You Beat the ATS?
00:22:06
Speaker
right And I think that's where we've started to see this trend that's called optimizing your resume to the ATS or how do you beat the ATS?
00:22:16
Speaker
And this is where I think a lot of misconception comes in. So, Vic, tell me, what is your understanding of this trend? Like, what what does it mean to optimize your resume to the ATS or to try and beat the ATS? Like, what is that?
00:22:33
Speaker
No, absolutely. And I'm going to kind of pass it on so to my experience as a career coach. So a couple years ago, I stepped away from recruiting and moved into career coaching, which essentially is parallel, right? And I did a lot of resumes.
00:22:47
Speaker
I no longer do that. I'm back to recruiting because there isn't a trick, right? There isn't a trick to do. There is... There is no way to beat the ATS, to be honest with you. That's a myth. For myth busting, myth.
00:23:01
Speaker
It is because you get these resumes. And I've worked with so many people that are like, hey, I got this resume. I have, here's my normal resume. And here is the resume that's ATS optimized.
00:23:12
Speaker
And i was like, don't, what do you mean your ATS optimized resume? Like, I think people who haven't worked in recruiting and maybe are resume writers think of it as like, hey, if we, you know, make this so readable and so the AI goes in there and they they pull up all this information and you come to the top of the list, it doesn't work like that.
00:23:31
Speaker
It's not, you you you can still use your pretty resume. And some ATSs are a little bit boring. and more beefier where you can go in there and do some more searches. Right. And so it pulls up some of the words that you have on that.
00:23:46
Speaker
But I really think about it as like a, like a F3 search, you know, when you open up a document and then you like want to search a word. I mean, that's really, that's the AI in it. Right. That's, I mean, honestly, Jackie, you correct me if I'm wrong. I just, I don't, I don't know where this trend came out to like, be like, Hey, this resume is going to help you beat the ATS because it's,
00:24:07
Speaker
Because it's not, they like, it's it's, we're still human beings. There's not, again, I talk about Ashby, I feel like that's the most advanced AI ATS I've seen. and And still, even so, humans are reviewing. Even in that sense, it's not...
00:24:21
Speaker
robots that are looking at your resume, you know? And so, and another thing that I've seen people who have tried to beat the ATS, and this is recently, this came up like this week, is I did a search for candidates and in the system and this candidate came up and I was like, oh, this is so weird. This is not, this person isn't an engineer at all. Like how did this come up?
00:24:41
Speaker
They must've put under like in white, these buzzwords, right? So they're coming up in the search. So yeah, okay, cool. I'm seeing this person, but they're not qualified. So are you really beating the ATS you're getting in front of me, but like you're not qualified.
00:24:57
Speaker
So my, my kind of take on what I've seen from like optimizing to the ATS, there's this built-in belief that when you submit your resume, the first thing that happens with it is that a robot scans it or AI scans it right and is,
00:25:14
Speaker
Looking for keywords and based on keywords, it's scoring your resume and then it passes it to the recruiter with some sort of score of how well it's matched to the job description.
00:25:30
Speaker
And then... If it's not well matched enough that, I don't know, AI throws it out or just doesn't present it or like puts it at the bottom of the pile. And there's this like seemingly widespread belief that AI is in there scoring your resume based on keywords. And then that's why you're getting seen or not seen.
00:25:50
Speaker
And to your point, I have to stress now, i I haven't worked with every single ATS out there, but I've worked with Paylocity. I've worked with iSIMS. I've worked with Lever. I've worked with Greenhouse.
00:26:01
Speaker
In all of the ATS systems that I've worked with, I have never had one that scores resumes for me and told me like, this person is an X percent match.
00:26:13
Speaker
I've never seen that. The way that I've seen it organized when it comes in, so you know when somebody submits their resume, it gets attached to that job. I, as the recruiter, go into that specific job and I see the list of candidates.
00:26:26
Speaker
yeah It is typically filtered by application date. That is usually, in my experience, the default. It's either first application is up top or most recent application is up top.
00:26:41
Speaker
That's when we, the humans, come in and filter it down based on different criteria. So to your point, keyword searches. Robots and AI aren't doing these keyword searches. We as humans are.
00:26:56
Speaker
And I love that you brought up the copy and paste job description trick because I've seen this so many times. And I see this advice given out left and right. And I have to dispel it because yeah what people are being told to do is when you apply to the job, you take that job description for that specific job, copy and paste it into your resume at the very bottom in very tiny white font so that as the recruiter is looking at your resume, they don't see it there.
00:27:26
Speaker
But you get pinged with all the keywords, right? like Because the AI is coming in and writing this resume and it's not, that's not what's happening.
00:27:38
Speaker
Exactly. And people don't realize that the AI isn't sitting there reading the keywords, we as recruiters are. So if I am searching my database of candidates and I'm looking for somebody who has Python experience, I might type in Python.
00:27:53
Speaker
Now, if you have copy and pasted the job description in tiny white font at the bottom of your resume and one of the keywords is Python and you don't have it anywhere else in your resume,
00:28:04
Speaker
When I go to do a control find, it highlights those skills and where they show up on your resume. hey And so when you do the copy and paste white font trick, I see a tiny little highlight at the bottom where there shouldn't be any highlighting because it appears all white.
00:28:22
Speaker
And the minute I see that, I know exactly what you've done. I know exactly. I've seen that trick so many times. it It becomes very apparent that the intention is to get in front of human eyes, which makes sense.
00:28:35
Speaker
The problem is if you're not qualified, getting in front of human eyes doesn't help you get the job. It helps you get seen. but right if you don't have the experience, you don't have the experience.
AI's Role in Recruitment
00:28:51
Speaker
that's just That's just, unfortunately, at the end of the day, that's kind of the bottom line there is that You have to be qualified to get the job. And that's why we talk about that matching, right? So I do think that there's some truth. Like if you talk about like tailoring your resume and that takes a lot of time. So I'm not saying that everybody should do that. I'm not giving this advice, you know, but but have a couple versions of your resume that you can plug and play for those different roles. You know, I think about my career, you know, I've done a couple different things. I've worked in GNA recruiting, which is non-technical.
00:29:27
Speaker
I've done technical recruiting for a whole span of my career and I was a career coach, right? And so depending on kind of what role I'm going for, I have a technical resume, I have a more generic recruiting resume, and then I have one for career coaching. That's not where I want to move into.
00:29:41
Speaker
but I had one when I was doing that, that that's the, that's the skills I highlighted. Right. So I think that there is something that plugging and playing of your resume for those jobs to have that alignment is great. And you should have your most relevant experience up there first. And that's the other thing I will say, if, if your relevant experience isn't,
00:30:02
Speaker
on your first page or second page. I mean, I'm scrolling, but you're looking at so many different things. So you think about that resume as like, this is your first look, right? So instead of everybody's so hyper-focused on, we got to beat the ATS, you know, and and like the robots, you know? yeah But like, that's not necessarily true. And that's the same thing with ChatGPT. I am okay with, I've ran all of my resumes through ChatGPT. I have, I'm not the strongest writer.
00:30:30
Speaker
It is a-okay. I'm still going to go in there and change everything because I want it to sound like Victoria. ah And if somebody jumped on the phone with me and then read my, you know, ah chat box, resume, they'd be like, who is this the same person?
00:30:43
Speaker
Because i because I operate very like I, you know, the way I present myself is very different. So to that point, it's like, yes, use these AI tools that we have, please. But like, think about it really, like you said, as your story, think about a human's going to open up the file. And the first thing they're going to see is technical skills and Python should be listed first, if that's the one that you're most comfortable with, right? And that's the trick. Again, are you going to get seen by every person? No, because Usually recruiters are working on six plus roles and they're getting 4,000 applicants for those roles. And so yeah sometimes it's just a timing thing. But yeah, there is no beating the ATS. Like it's not...
00:31:23
Speaker
It's not, recruiters don't want to find reasons not to hire you. know I feel like that's the biggest thing. Like, I think people are like, oh the robots are coming and these gatekeepers. And it's like, no, we're trying to find a right fit for us and for you, which is again, here we go. Shout out to our greenhouse. I love this feature. We were talking with our rep. And so she was going over that.
00:31:42
Speaker
recently a couple of weeks ago with us. And I love this candidate pool. So like for me personally, I love having a database of people that could be a fit, maybe not right now, but could be a fit to go back through and that I could search. And again, the robot's not searching in there.
00:31:56
Speaker
We're searching in there. Right. like it here We're the ones going in there doing these Boolean searches for those who don't know. We do that on LinkedIn and and we're doing that. If the ATS allows us to do that, we're doing that search in there. So it really depends on kind of the words you have together.
00:32:12
Speaker
And it's not like that's not beating the ATS. That's just having that experience right on your resume. Right. And with a couple exceptions that we'll talk about in just a minute, the ATS isn't automatically throwing out your resume. And this is what I want to stress to people so much is that 95% of the time, your resume isn't being like mysteriously thrown out. It's not like it's not getting to a human being.
00:32:39
Speaker
It's getting in there. It's being submitted automatically. to that job, that specific job. It's being tied to it in the system. Your application is there. It's the volume that is the hardest hurdle to overcome. There are thousands and thousands of people applying to every single job.
00:32:56
Speaker
And yes, while you might be in the system in that job, it is hard to guarantee that a recruiter will lay eyes on your resume because there are so many resumes to go through.
00:33:06
Speaker
So it is it is very difficult. And I will say, to your point with kind of keywords and using chat GPT, we all know that this is a thing. We are not naive.
00:33:19
Speaker
We don't sit there and think that nobody's going to use AI to write their resume. Of course you are. We as recruiters will often do it if we're applying for other jobs, right? AI is a big piece of helping people.
00:33:33
Speaker
The trick is making sure that you can speak to whatever you're putting in there. So if you take a job description and take your resume and you put it together in GPT and say, write my resume to be consistent with this job description, it'll do it for you.
00:33:52
Speaker
It is your responsibility as a job seeker to go in and make sure that what it is put together, you can speak to. Because anything you put on your resume, if you get the interview, that is fair game for them to ask about.
00:34:05
Speaker
And I have talked to many candidates who put something on their resume. And when I ask about it, you know, they can't describe what they used or how they used it or what it was for.
00:34:18
Speaker
So, it and it does become very apparent who has done what they say they've done and who put it on the resume and can't speak to it. So you do have to be very careful about that when you make those tweaks to your resume. Totally.
00:34:33
Speaker
you know But that's the optimization. Like, that's what I think about when I think about resume optimization or LinkedIn optimization. Like, when I think about that word, I don't think, like, let's beat the ATS. I think about it, like, how can we use the tools that we have to enhance me getting in front of somebody? And that's the way that I think job security... And I know it's hard when you're unemployed and you're looking for jobs and you're just kind of, like, pray and spray. Like, I get it. Like, we have all been there, right? You know, I don't think there's a person...
00:35:00
Speaker
right now that can't say that they've been impacted, haven't been impacted or haven't been on the market. And it's a different animal, but like use the tools appropriately. So yes, optimize your resume, but like take out this notion of, hey, I'm going to beat the ATS. I'm going to find these loopholes. There isn't really a loophole, right?
00:35:17
Speaker
Think about it as a human's going to read this. If I get an interview, can I speak to my experience? And, you know, again, and getting through the system is important.
00:35:29
Speaker
But also being honest because like then, cool, you did all of this work and you get an interview and you don't have the experience. That stinks. Right now. You've spent your time to get in front of somebody.
00:35:40
Speaker
Right. Just for it to not come to anything. And it is. you know It's good to have those keywords. I'm a big proponent of taking job descriptions and matching the keywords and phrases and blending that into your resume.
00:35:55
Speaker
That is a very good thing to do. If you can show how you've used the concepts that they're using or the technology that you're using, If you show that in your resume, that's a really good, strong bet to get matched with this job, if you will, right?
00:36:13
Speaker
Can't guarantee that you'll get seen, but if you do get seen, that's going to be your best bet for quickly standing out and showing them, yes, I can do this work. You just have to be careful not to go overboard and start copy and pasting whole job descriptions into your resume or claiming you have skills that you don't. Because again, that's just, that ends up wasting everybody's And will say a lot of job descriptions are pretty generic, you know? So like you do it and it's kind of like, okay, it's pretty generic, almost intentionally, right? Sometimes so those people just don't have time to write the job descriptions.
00:36:46
Speaker
That's a whole different, we'll get on that tangent another time. But sometimes the job descriptions are just bad. There's that. yeah And you you're not benefiting yourself. like coffee that Because it's like a generic, hey, we need a recruiter. Have you but have one year of recruiting experience? It's like, yeah, well.
00:37:04
Speaker
I have seen, especially on LinkedIn, I've seen people out there offering their services to optimize your resume to the ATS. Like, pay me $100 and I'll optimize your resume to the ATS. even if like Even if we pretend that optimizing your resume to the ATS was a thing, the problem also comes in, like we talked about earlier, each company is tweaking their application for that job, for each unique job. There's different requirements, there's different questions.
00:37:36
Speaker
So even if somebody offered to optimize your resume to the ATS, they're not able to do that across the board. They might be able to do it for one job, maybe if they are you know good at doing it taking those context clues and trying to write your resume for that one job.
00:37:55
Speaker
But when you think about it, like if somebody is charging you $100 to rewrite your resume, even if they're charging you $20 to optimize your resume for the ATS, number one, you're going to have to pay them a lot based on how many jobs you apply to.
00:38:08
Speaker
And number two, Even if you pay them to do that, that is never a guarantee that you're still going to get in front of somebody. So it's always a risk, right? Totally.
00:38:20
Speaker
i mean honestly, like that is why I stepped away from career root coaching. I did. I was like, I can't help people. I'm just taking money and it just could be bad timing. We could have written the best job description for that job, that one job that you really wanted to get and you're just the perfect fit and still not get it So it's just in this market that doesn't work. That's not a service that I, in my personal opinion and being on the other side and providing services to help job seekers, I just really don't think it's a service that works because there's too many variables for it
What Are Knockout Questions?
00:38:50
Speaker
not to work.
00:38:50
Speaker
You know what I mean? And optimization, I think people you hear that word and they just get like really excited. um You know, like, oh, yes, but like you said, like, there's just, there's just variations that you should and tweaks you should be doing for, for different jobs and different companies and different industries and how you your professional brand, right? And so Yeah.
00:39:14
Speaker
Now, I do want to touch on another topic that we started to hit on earlier, because there are candidates out there who will apply to a job, they go through the application, they answer these questions, and then seemingly like 30 seconds to two minutes later, all of a sudden they get a rejection email.
00:39:32
Speaker
And I think at that point we can both agree it's pretty clear that It is unlikely that a human in 30 seconds after somebody applied looked at their resume and said, nope, not this person. So what is the deal there? Like if optimization isn't a thing, why are people getting these like very rapid turnaround rejections? Totally.
00:39:53
Speaker
Yeah, no, I'm so happy we're talking about this, Jackie, because like, you know, we can say that there's no AI at all, but there is. And they're and they're in the form of these knockout questions. That's what we call them as recruiters. If you've ever done anything in talent acquisition, you'll know what a knockout question is.
00:40:06
Speaker
And essentially, you can set any question as a knockout question. You know, it could be... Hey, ah do you reside in San Diego? Say the job is here, right? And they're requiring somebody to be hybrid or full-time on site, right?
00:40:19
Speaker
And you answer, no, you're not here. And that's my knockout question. I'm like, okay, anybody who answers no, is going to get rejected because I want my candidate pool to be in San Diego, California, right? Just say that's an easy an example. We're using location.
00:40:33
Speaker
So they automatically are getting rejected because i set that, the human set the I asked the ai to say, hey, everybody who answers no to this question, i want to disposition them.
00:40:46
Speaker
let's keep in mind that these mostly and and maybe you've used ATSs that aren't like this these are mostly yes or no questions in my experience I haven't really seen these you know when you're like hey why do you want to work at this job like the AI isn't reading your paragraph and being like oh that that wasn't a good answer see you later usually they're yes or no questions right um other like examples of this it could be like you have Two years, at least two experience with GitHub, right? GitHub. Oh, my goodness. I'm sorry, my tech brain. um definite my different With HubSpot, with HubSpot, right? And you answer no. Maybe that's my knockout question, right? So they could be in any form of what we want them to be, like whatever that requirement is, you know, and how you're how you're answering it.
00:41:32
Speaker
We can also set it as like, say the salary range, and I'm just going to use really like low numbers, right? Say the salary range is like 50K to 60K. and And the question, I word the question in the form of, will you be willing to take 50 to 60K? And you answer no, maybe that's my knockout question. But typically they're yes or no questions and you set them as a recruiter and they're usually pretty, and don't want say simple, but like usually they're around location, salary, maybe in the form of visa sponsorship, maybe the company's not able to provide sponsorship for candidates. So that's a knockout question. that Maybe it's the tools you've used, you know, and how many years you've done them, but yeah.
00:42:11
Speaker
that's That's the AI. But again, we're setting them. So they don't come pre-populated with the ATS. Oh, because you use greenhouse. They're going to like every ATS. Well, most ATSs have an option to do the knockout questions.
00:42:23
Speaker
It's up to you as the recruiter or the recruiting team to see if you want to opt into them. And I will say that the voluntary, what is it? Oh my God. e oh the EEOC c questions. Yeah. EEOC questions are not narco questions.
00:42:36
Speaker
We are not legally allowed. And I have to say the shout out because a lot of people have asked me this, like, oh, do you think I'm getting disposition because I'm not a veteran or because I'm a man, right? And they're looking for a diverse, that is used for something completely separate. It's for us as, as the team to get that data. Like, are we attracting enough women? Are we attracting enough diverse pool of candidates, right?
00:42:58
Speaker
Those are not knockout questions that we are not legally able. I have to to give that disclaimer. We are not able legally able to use those as knockout questions. Yes. And and ah to even expand further on that, I will say, even even if a company said, I want these EEOC to be knockout questions,
00:43:17
Speaker
the The ATS won't do that because legally they can't do that. Exactly. And when people answer those questions, those answers are not directly tied to their profile.
00:43:29
Speaker
From my experience, all you can see is the aggregate information. Exactly. Out of your 100,000 people who have applied across all of your jobs, X percent identify as this.
00:43:41
Speaker
X percent. So even when you're answering those questions, even if you do choose to answer them, and you never have to, ah but It's not tied to your profile. So the recruiter isn't going in there. They don't have access to see here's how you answered your EEOC questions.
00:43:57
Speaker
It gets tied to a giant pool of data that is not generally identifiable to the person. And the right companies will look at that data and use it to say, it seems like we're not attracting x type of population. What can we do as the talent team to attract more of those people? Because- You know, ideally you want lots of different schools of thought and lots of different approaches to help round out a good team.
00:44:25
Speaker
So that's just useful information. I do, it's a good call out because a lot of people bring it up. They're like, these are the questions or those are the knockout questions. And it's like, And I will say for going back to your point about the knockout questions, knockout questions typically have to be set up with very specific criteria because the capabilities of an applicant tracking system right now, they are not able to...
00:44:50
Speaker
take free form content and analyze it and then use that to knock somebody out. It's just, it's too complex to be able to do that.
00:45:01
Speaker
a AI in an ATS relies on very simple logic. It relies on very simple, straightforward logic. So to your point, it's a lot of those yes or no questions because you can tell the system, you can say, if this person answers yes to this question, scoot them forward.
00:45:19
Speaker
If this person answers no to this question, reject them. But you can't tell the system. If somebody generally tells me that they like doing this or they're interested in that, like it doesn't, the AI cannot handle that.
00:45:33
Speaker
It can't. It's one or the other, right? That's just, it's one or the other. Yeah, we don't, like you said, we don't have a complicated, it's not complicated. Right. So as as candidates are applying, the thing to keep in mind is there might be knockout questions. It doesn't mean that every yes or no question automatically is a knockout question. yep But knockout questions.
00:45:56
Speaker
If there are any, those are going to be those yes or no questions or those like you must choose like one of these. If you have a free form text box, that's not going to be a knockout question, whether that's asking you why you want to work somewhere or if you have a free form question about how much do you want to make, the the system can't automatically knock you out for those free form questions. But...
00:46:20
Speaker
The human can. but So let let's bring it back. Let's bring it back to their ATS optimization does not exist because, again, the human can. I can go easily in those questions and do it myself. I could start with those questions.
00:46:34
Speaker
If I didn't want to start with the resume and i'm where are you currently located? And you say, hey, I'm currently located in Virginia. And I'm like, well, that stinks, Jackie, because you need to be in San Diego. I'm... i I'm doing it, right? That's me. That's me as a human being. That's doing it.
00:46:49
Speaker
Right. And that's where, yes, you may still get rejected for these answers you're providing. But 95% of the time, if you're getting that rejection email, it's from a human being who went through and looked at your application, your resume, and actively made the decision that you are not the right fit for what they need, right? yeah Like, it's usually a person doing it. Even...
00:47:14
Speaker
even though everybody is getting those initial boilerplate rejections, even if you get a boilerplate rejection, somebody has to initiate that. And that's where the human piece comes in.
00:47:25
Speaker
You may sit there and say, oh, the system rejected me because look at this boilerplate. But I'll be honest, recruiters don't have time to personalize every single rejection, especially when it's during the application review. And again, we've talked about, we're looking through hundreds, if not thousands of resumes.
00:47:42
Speaker
We don't have time to sit there and say, specifically here is exactly the reason that, you know, we chose not to scoot you forward to a phone screen. It is that boilerplate.
00:47:53
Speaker
Thank you so much. Unfortunately, we went forward with somebody else. And like, have you never used a template ever in your life? Right. I mean, they're templated emails. I was using Quick Parts years ago, right? You know what I mean? So like, again, it's a templated email because we just don't have the time, but it does not mean that AI is reading your resume. It doesn't. It's a templated email that I'm pressing send on.
00:48:15
Speaker
Yeah. one One other thing I want to touch on, I've seen so many candidates out there who are applying to jobs and they are well qualified for these positions they're applying to. you They're hitting all the basic qualifications.
00:48:29
Speaker
They're hitting tons of the preferred qualifications, if not all of the preferred qualifications, and they are still getting rejected. Why is it that really, really well qualified people are being knocked out in the first round for what they're told is a more qualified candidate?
Why Are Qualified Candidates Rejected?
00:48:46
Speaker
There's just so much talent out there. And like, that's what I got to say. There's just so much talent out there. And so you could, you could have all of the right fits and there could just be somebody that just stood out.
00:48:58
Speaker
more or aligned more. Or this is kind of how I think about it. The longer the job is open, right? And this isn't, oh, you get more applicants. Yes. The longer the job is open, the more people you have interview.
00:49:11
Speaker
The requirements sometimes change a little bit in the mix, right? So even though on paper, you look at the job and you're saying, hey, this is a perfect fit for me. The recruiter who didn't change the job description might know, okay, now,
00:49:23
Speaker
Because these candidates went through the interview process and they're not a fit and they have the same experience. You know, we're going to try something different. So it could be a variety of different things, right? That you're not qualified for. You could be, I hate using the word overqualified. I really do. I really do. Cause I know that there's a lot of overqualified people for roles. and they're like, I could do this with my eyes closed.
00:49:42
Speaker
I feel like in that case, it sometimes can be a little risky for the company because they're like, okay, if we hire this person, are they going to leave once they find that better fit? Right. That with more alignment. So yeah,
00:49:53
Speaker
A lot of this is subjective and it's subjective from the hiring team. So I think about recruiters and your hiring partners, right? So you're hiring managers, you know, so you could on paper be a perfect candidate. and this is why optimization does not work.
00:50:06
Speaker
this is This is honestly why, because you could on paper be a perfect fit for this role and still get disqualified because they could have candidates further along in the process. Right. And they have three candidates on final onsites and they know that they're going to, they're to make a high. They know it, right? So they're like, sorry, we're moving forward with you know other team members.
00:50:23
Speaker
They could have revisited the the role and been like, okay, this profile isn't working for us anymore. We're not updating the job description. or just we're We're just going to look at a different profile. So the recruiter goes in there and does that.
00:50:35
Speaker
Or you could have so much experience. And again, that's not a negative. This is again, where you should, you know, tailor your resume. You don't need to have, you know, 10 pages on, you know, uploaded, but you could have so much experience that the team is just like, ah or maybe it's just adjacent and there's just so many candidates out there. And that's, it's a bummer. We, we overhired couple years ago and, and, and now there's a lot of really qualified talent out there on the job market. And,
00:51:03
Speaker
It's no fault to the job seekers. And to that point, I would say if there's anything that anybody takes away from this, I would spend less time on optimizing your resume for the ATS, beating the ATS. And if you're going to spend that energy, I would really talk think about networking.
00:51:18
Speaker
I think that that that's that's where job seekers should be going. It's about who you connect with, who you talk to, who you can share your experience with. And like versus this like thought that somebody is going to give you this magical resume that's going to flow you through the ATS because there's a lot of different variables. Again, it's so subjective and there's a lot of variables that go into it. You can't plan for that.
00:51:42
Speaker
Right. You know?
The Power of Networking Over ATS Tricks
00:51:44
Speaker
The strongest way to get seen is knowing somebody who works somewhere or knowing somebody who has a connection that works somewhere. Building those networks, that's how you're best going to be able to get in front of human eyes is if you have somebody vouching for you and saying, hey, I know this person, look at them.
00:52:04
Speaker
A lot of companies, not every company, But a lot of companies will give that preference to somebody who's been referred in because you have one of your current employees basically vouching for them and speaking for them.
00:52:16
Speaker
Yeah. And that's when the resume comes through. That's like another great example is like that's when you want your resume to match your experience, the job, the company. Right. I call it your professional brand. And that just it's not beating the ATS.
00:52:28
Speaker
It's building that professional brand for yourself, right? Yep, yep. And having somebody to be able to go in and say, i know this person or I know of this person. They seem like they would be great.
00:52:41
Speaker
Give them a look. Most companies at a minimum will give you that solid eyes on your resume. And it doesn't guarantee that you'll get anywhere in the interview process, but it is that first step of getting seen. And right now that is the biggest hurdle for all job seekers is just...
00:52:56
Speaker
Somebody please look at me, see me, see my experience. So it's rough. And that's if you're going to say anything, that's how you beat the ATX. Like I think that's the trick, right? Is yes is networking getting, I know, I do. That's the real optimization. That's the optimization.
00:53:12
Speaker
Yeah. Well, Vic, before I let you go, do you have any last advice or things you would recommend for people who are just in the thick of it in their job search right now? Yeah.
00:53:25
Speaker
I'm going to say don't give up. Keep your head up. it's such an emotional roller coaster. I was here just a couple months ago. So leverage your network, take the time that you need. If you get a lot of rejections, blame the robots, not the recruiters.
00:53:38
Speaker
yeah No, keep your head up. Honestly, keep your head up. Keep networking. There are ah lot of different opportunities popping up and just don't, don't give up.
00:53:49
Speaker
And if you need a break from applying to a million jobs, take that break. It's okay. It will come. Don't, don't get into this like analysis paralysis about this ATS, you know, like, yeah,
Final Encouragement and Networking Tips
00:54:04
Speaker
agreed. Well, Vic, is there anywhere that people could find you if they wanted to reach out, ask you questions or just connect with you?
00:54:12
Speaker
Yeah, I love it. I'm on LinkedIn, uh, Victoria. My last name is M-A-J-C-H-E-R. So if you want to add me I am very active on LinkedIn, so always happy always happy yeah to add or answer any questions or anything along those lines.
00:54:28
Speaker
Love it. Well, thank you so much, Vic. I really appreciate you coming to chat with me. Hopefully people got something out of this and yeah maybe are a little bit more reassured that it's not just robots that are reg rejecting your resume or not sending it forward.
00:54:44
Speaker
It really is, unfortunately, just the state of the job market right now. Exactly. I appreciate you. I appreciate your time. Thanks for having me. This is great. I just enjoy this all just chatting with you. It's been fun.
00:54:57
Speaker
I love nerding out on recruiting stuff. It's always my favorite. much. Thanks for joining us for another episode of I Lost My Job. Hopefully you got some good information about the ATS and what it can and can't do.
00:55:12
Speaker
We'll be back next week with another story from the community. In the meantime, if you have questions you'd like us to answer on future episodes, or if you have a layoff story you'd like to share, email us at ilostmyjobpodcast at gmail.com.
00:55:30
Speaker
That's ilostmyjobpodcast at gmail.com.