I’ve been working at an IT Recruitment company, Computappoint, now for over 9 months, and must have seen over 3,000 different CV’s. It has been my job to manage the companies database system and to migrate information from a word doc, a pdf etc. into a database as structured information.
So why am I telling you this? Well, from my experience, it surprisingly common to have a candidate's CV which throws errors when being “read” by a database system, in particular, the now popular; Applicant Tracking System (ATS) which tries to automate this process.
With the average job vacancy receiving 133 applications [1,2] before a successful applicant is chosen for graduate roles, it is no wonder that ATS’s have become a more popular way to be able to quickly filter out candidates in a screening process [3]. This has become so popular with many HR departments, in fact, it is probably rarer to find one not using an ATS [4], and with job ads receiving such a large number of applicants it’s no wonder they have become so popular, they are providing a much simpler and efficient solution.
So can I do something about it? Well first you have to think “what are recruiters looking for?”, you need to be able to populate your CV with keywords that reflect the job spec, you should be tailoring your CV to every position you apply for. A few companies such as Jobscan [3], have created many free resources where you can compare elements of your CV to see how well it matches any job spec [5]. Boolean logic is often the method of choice for many recruiters [6], searching through applications for matches keywords or required skills, by matching a job spec or a list of requirements it is more likely you will not be filtered by this process.
Nowadays so many recruitment and job websites are absolutely crammed full of information on “how to write a killer CV” or “CV top tips” etc. if you’ve tried to look for a job in the last 6 months you will know what I mean. Many job boards now offer a “free consultation” with one of their services to help improve your CV, many recruitment agencies are now turning their attention to blog posts and social media, increasing their knowledge base filling them with how to guides for a perfect CV. However not often do you see these people telling you how to write for an ATS, and yet you can guarantee most of them will be using one themselves, so doesn't this defeat the whole point of giving out the advice? Nowadays writing a CV is not just about great content, but also making sure a computer parsing program can read it just as well as a human.
A parsing software uses an algorithm to statistically determine the likely areas of your CV that will contain information for each section it requires. This software will initially clear all formatting and styling so that the strings (as in lengths of text information) readable by the software. The software will then migrate data from the CV to a structured database or ATS.
Information parsed into an ATS can then be assessed to highlight keywords or skills that are often based on a predetermined lexicon, a defined list of words, which would be based on either the companies requirements or an algorithm of the software [7]. It is often this particular area which is of interest to many recruiters, by using software to find key phrases in a candidates CV it makes it a lot easier to run a search on particular keywords that are specific to the given job, this, therefore, means the list of applicants is rapidly reduced to a more manageable volume where the recruiter will then be able to fully assess these highlighted candidates.
So although there isn’t a “best way” to write a CV for a parsing system there are simple tips, some you may not even realise, that you can follow to make sure your CV can be read by a machine, such as where to put contact information or even what words you should be putting in your sub-headings [8].
The Format of a CV is often the most common cause of CV parsing errors, so much so in fact that up to 72% of all applicants aren’t seen by the recruiter [9]. The font used can also cause an error, this is because the software has to know what the font is to “decrypt” the CV, sticking to commonly used fonts can improve your chances.
A simple test to check how your CV may appear on an ATS is to copy it into windows Notepad or Text Editor on Mac, and see whether or not the document still reads just as it was intended for these applications as it does on Word or Adobe etc. e.g. do the dates and subheadings remain above the text they are associated with?
Avoid repetition, a lot of new software is being introduced to be able to identify keywords. This works by rating each word if can identify, the fewer times it can find that word the higher importance it is given and therefore more likely to be a keyword [9].
Take a look at this video, which highlights some simple tricks to keep your CV on top of the pile:
Don’t fear though, there are a lot of people on your side, many companies, such as IBM, are focusing efforts to not only read text information but also understand the context and the meaning of the words, systems such as IBM Watson have excelled already in their early phase and it won’t be soon until this software is more readily available for other industries, therefore making CV parsing systems more able to understand “natural CV’s”.
This blog can also be found on my Linkedin page and Quora blog page