The art of resume optimisation – designing your resume for the modern job market
My Health Career is pleased to publish an article by Gillian Kelly on how to format your resume so that it can be read by Applicant Tracking Systems. This might be important if you are applying for a job with a large organisation and the recruiters use software to scan the resumes of applicants, and then use this data to track the applicants. Gillian Kelly is a Career Consultant at Outplacement Australia.
“In the new world of work, today’s resume is a complex document with multiple targets. Not only does it need to be designed to catch the attention of HR staff and recruiters, but it also needs to be developed so that it is effective for the many technologies scanning, reading and storing these documents.
With an ever-increasing amount of job boards, large volumes of applications often flood and overwhelm HR and recruitment staff. In response applicant tracking systems are now used by some employers, job boards and recruiters to manage relevant candidates for roles they have listed. This means your resume needs to be developed with these technologies in mind.
Resume writing is complex. Your resume needs to be scanner friendly but also needs to ensure you stand out to the reader. Unfortunately some visual elements such as shading, graphs, symbols or text boxes may cause characters to interfere with text in resumes when read by some scanners. This means many highly qualified and suitable applicants are sometimes missed as their resumes are ineffectually read by scanning technologies.
Ideally when sending your resume to an employer or recruiter take the following steps to avoid this:
• Check with the HR contact or the recruiter to identify their preference for your file type. Most prefer MS Word but on occasion some systems may request Plain Text or PDF versions. If you are unsure it’s best to avoid sending PDF versions unless you are also attaching a Word version as well as some systems can’t read PDF’s. It may also be helpful to confirm that they have received it and are able to read it effectively. This is also an ideal opportunity for establishing contact and a relationship.
• Select commonly used business fonts. Some scanners have trouble reading small (less than 8 point) font sizes, unusual fonts, expanded or condensed text. It’s best to stick to common fonts (such as Arial or Calibri) with little to no kerning (spacing adjustments). Keep all fonts at least 8 point or above. Eight to twelve point is ideal.
• Avoid placing your contact details or name in the header or footers. Some scanners miss this area and will result in your contact details being omitted on their files.
• Align your resume content with the role requirements or job advertisement. Scanners may be assessing your resume to ascertain your relevance to a particular role so it is important your resume contains relevant keywords appropriate to these possible search terms. To improve your resume performance review the advertisement and other documentation carefully to identify skills, technologies, experience and attributes highlighted in the role and reflect your experience using these words in your resume.
• Avoid placing information in text boxes and in front of shading, and restrict your use of symbols and graphics. Shading and text boxes may lead to key content being missed. Graphics and symbols may corrupt your text or lead again to content or figures being missed. Avoid coloured backgrounds, italics or coloured paper.
As mentioned above today’s resume is a challenge. You need to stand out and catch the reader’s attention but you also need to make it scanner-friendly. If you want to design your resume to include the visual elements above but are concerned about risking your resume with ATS technologies an alternative option is to send 2 versions in your application (if possible) – a high-impact formatted, visual version for the reader and another plainer text Word file with no visual formatting that can be used by ATS technologies if required. This covers you on both accounts and enables you to provide your information without losing critical reader impact.
The good news is scanning technologies are becoming more sophisticated and improving day by day and are growing better at integrating the many visual information tools and methods available to job seekers today to showcase their backgrounds.
Good luck with your job search and career! I wish you health, wealth and happiness.
Disclaimer: PLEASE NOTE SCANNING TECHNOLOGY IS COMPLEX AND CONSTANTLY CHANGING AND THE INFORMATION ABOVE SHOULD BE SEEN AS OPINION ONLY. PLEASE SEEK SPECIFIC ADVICE FROM RECRUITERS OR EMPLOYERS REGARDING REQUIREMENTS FOR THEIR SCANNING SOFTWARE.”