ATS stands for Applicant Tracking Software. It is used by recruiters to manage the recruitment process, including searching and organising candidate information to match relative skills to advertised jobs, and tracks candidates throughout the various stages of the hiring process.
Recruiter Marcel, outlines why your CV ATS score is important:
“Having worked in recruitment for some time now I totally understand the need for a good ATS score. For example, I recruited for a client in Melbourne who needed a customer service call centre operator and I received 250 online applicants. Using our recruitment software I was able to search the applicants CV’s for keywords such as "customer service" and "call centre". By doing this the list was reduced considerably and I was only looking at suitably experienced candidates. Even if a candidate had the relevant experience, if their CV had a low ATS score they would not feature in my shortlist and therefore don't even get consideration. (Sad, but a reality.)” - Marcel Smith – Recruitment Consultant.
Recruiters may receive an overwhelming response to job ads, as with the example above. Recruiters and hiring managers do not have time to read through hundreds of CV’s which is why ATS software is really useful for searching candidate databases for skills and experience relative to job vacancies.
When you apply for a job through a recruiter your CV goes into a candidate database along with everyone else who has also applied for the job. Recruiters will search on key words relative to what their client is looking for to pick out the most suitable candidates, and only those CV’s will get a look in by a person.
Also relative to your ATS score is the formatting and layout of your CV and quality of written English. You will want to ensure that your information is in a clear, logical format and is free of typos, spelling and grammar errors so that it is easily readable and accurately interpreted by ATS software, as well as humans.
Using CV writing software can improve the ATS readability of your resume.
We have tested a number of SAAS CV writing tools and recommend MyPerfectCV.co.uk Not only is it easy to use, when you have created your CV it will print in A4 size (correct for NZ / Australia); unlike many of the other online products available.
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