IsoTalent’s Post

Ayrion Orton is #hiring. Know anyone who might be interested?

Ayrion Orton is #hiring. Know anyone who might be interested?

Jenn Packham is #hiring. Know anyone who might be interested?

ATS friendly resumes do not exist. There I said it. And I may get roasted for this statement and I am ok with it. I run an ATS with nearly 11K clients and 5M candidates flowing through it at any given time. There are some ways that you can help the resume parsing be more complete and accurate. This part is true. But please, if you are looking for a job, don’t go buy a service or a template to make your resume “ATS ready”. This is equivalent to buying the snake oil of the past. Having said that, here are a few things to consider when submitting any resume - in physical form or through an ATS: 1) Grammatical or Spelling Errors - 59% of recruiters (not ATSs) will reject a candidate's resume because of this. So many different tools are available to help you - including Grammarly or even spell check in Google Doc and Microsoft Word. Take a few extra minutes to run through these. It is small, but it matters. However…ApplicantPro does not auto-reject based on grammatical errors. 2) Overly Formatted - I love beautiful marketing materials as much as the next person. And a beautiful piece promoting yourself as a job seeker SEEMS like a good idea. But a resume isn’t the place for that. Rather, simple formatting showcasing your skills that match the requirements will always be the best policy. It may not parse properly and will look wonky when it arrives at the hiring manager, but ApplicantPro will not auto-reject. 3) Correct Keywords - I was taught when looking for a job, that I should take a few extra minutes and tailor my resume to each job that I was applying for. This is still important but not to trick an ATS but so that when a human reviews your resume it is easier for them to see you in the role. Use the job ad as your guide on this. If it says copywriter in the job title (and you possess this skill), use that exact word in your resume. ‘Content creator’ doesn’t match exactly and therefore doesn’t hold the weight that ‘copywriter’ does. Where possible use the exact keyword. You may not be highlighted as a top candidate to review. But ApplicantPro does not reject based on resume keywords. 4) Image format of resume - Where possible have a polished version of your resume saved in a pdf or doc file format on your phone. (Pdf is best) When applying on job boards, many won’t accept a screenshot of your resume or another image file format. Even if they do accept the image file type, not all ATS will be able to parse your resume from an image file. It either can’t be done or it will kick back a wonky version to the hiring manager. But, having the wrong resume file type will not get you an auto-rejection from ApplicantPro. Let’s say it one more time - we do not auto-reject based on resumes. It isn’t a thing. Anyone telling you otherwise, is probably trying to sell you something. Big thank you to James Hudson for continuing to talk about this topic.

“I just don’t think people are applying for these kinds of jobs. This generation doesn’t want to work!” I heard this from a frustrated client recently and the first thing I did was open her job ad. The ad looked solid. Next I looked at their statuses. It wasn’t that people weren’t applying, it was that people weren’t seeing it! Indeed and other job boards have secret and complex algorithms that prioritize and give visibility to jobs that fit their criteria. Along with inclusion of salary and recency, we are seeing a push for what they call disposition data. In other words, the status of the candidate in the hiring process and communicating this to candidates. We see all over our feeds and hear from job seekers that ghosting is a big problem for both candidates and employers alike. I believe that Indeed, in particular, is looking to help this challenge by prioritizing responsive employers and giving preference to jobs and employers that are actively communicating with applicants - and proving it through their status updates. We have a weekly call with Indeed, a very cool benefit of being one of their platinum partners, and the past several meetings have focused on quality disposition data coming back and forth between them and the ATS. The integration is built to facilitate this handshake. But it is only as good as the consistency of the hiring manager updating those statuses. So, do yourself a favor. Disposition your candidates and do it at every applicant interaction. If you decide you aren’t going to move them forward to the next stage, update their status to “Not Selected’. If you screen them and love them, change their status to ‘Top - Schedule Interview.’ Then ‘Interview Scheduled’. Then ‘Interview Complete’…you get the point. If your ATS is connected to the job boards, they will receive this data and it will be a signal to them that you are a responsive employer. Job boards will reward this behavior with more visibility. More people will then see and click on your ad. More positive signals will be sent to the job board. Then more visibility. Do yourself and your job seekers a favor, update your statuses and communicate with your candidates - consistently. It matters to them, can help your employer brand and can also get you more job board visibility, leading to more clicks and application starts.

We told you this was coming! We couldn’t be more excited to announce that we are adding Payroll to our Full Suite of HR tools! 🎉 With ApplicantPro you can now Source, Screen, Hire, and Manage employees all within our end-to-end solution. For more information, visit https://bit.ly/3ulkHPh or comment Payroll below to learn more! #ApplicantProPayroll