FrançaisTips to Make an ATS Friendly CV
What's an Applicant Tracking System (ATS)?
An applicant tracking system, often referred to as an ATS, is a software application that automates the hiring process and streamline the hiring process from source to hire.
What does ATS look for?
When an Applicant Tracking System search on candidates, it looks at a number of different fields and give these fields different weights.
Here are the main fields most ATS search on, in order of weight:
❷ Last Name
❸ Email / Phone
❹ City
❺ Postcode
❻ Current Position at current company
❼ Skills - parsed from CV
❽ Past Positions at past companies
❾ Education
Source: SmartRecruiters.com
CV Checklist
First and Last Name, Email and Phone - Make sure your contact details are included in your CV and correctly spelt.
City & Postcode - This is a powerful filter that can reject a large number of applications if the company is looking for candidates within a certain distance of the workplace. So before applying, check if the company offers flexible working conditions with regards to location, working schedules etc. so that your application can be considered if you live in a different city or country.
Current Position at current company - This is the most important field to greatly improve your ATS score. Your current job title should closely match the job title you are applying for and be widely recognised e.g. if you are a Finance Manager and are applying for a French Finance Manager or an EMEA Finance Manager position, you should add "French" or "EMEA" to your job title (as long as you have the skills) to match the advert.
Skills parsed from CV - ATS will look for specific skills which are most likely to be found within the job description you are applying for. Use our powerful and quick CV scanner tool to optimise your CV with keywords, and focus on placing them in strategic positions as described further down.
Education - List your qualifications as requested in the job description. If you lack education, focus on your experience.
Last but not least, use a simple CV template in a popular file format such as Word or PDF with no fancy graphics that could be misinterpreted by ATS.
How to list skills on a CV
It’s easy to get carried away and incorporate your keywords into your CV more than you should. Unfortunately, ATS are wise to keyword stuffing and will now penalise CV that do this. Instead of repeating the keyword a hundred times in the "body", it’s better to focus on placing it in strategic positions on your CV such as:
- Current Title & Position
- Past Titles & Positions
- Education