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With effective whitespace and adding your initials in the contact header, this excellent template makes an impact right away.
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How To Choose An ATS Resume Template
At Hloom, choosing an ATS-friendly resume template is easy! If you need help deciding which is best for you, just follow these simple steps.
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Pick a format: First you will want to know how you want to format your resume. This is especially important in deciding what information to include and how to arrange it:
Reverse Chronological: The reverse chronological resume is the most common, and therefore most ATS-friendly, format. With a focus on experience, your work history section takes up most of your resume.
Functional: The functional resume, also known as the skills-based resume, maximizes your skillset and minimizes your work experience. However, it is a good choice for first-time job seekers who understand that this format is not the most ATS-friendly.
Combination: The combination, or hybrid, resume, balances the focus between work experience and skills, which can be very helpful for those changing careers or have a lot of gaps in their resume.
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Know your audience: With so many templates to choose from, it is important to remember that there are different expectations between industries. A more conservative law firm will want a more tempered design, whereas an architect firm may appreciate a bit of creativity in your resume.
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Use ATS-friendly techniques: Be mindful to keep your resume ATS-friendly. Avoid graphics, images, tables, and other formatting choices that can cause errors with the applicant tracking system. When in doubt, keep it simple.
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Play to your strengths: Your resume should reflect who you are as a professional, so pick a resume that speaks to you and helps you showcase your greatest qualifications.
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Ask for feedback: It is always a good idea to have someone else look at your resume. A new perspective can make suggestions that help you decide how to write your resume.
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Have multiple versions available: Keep yourself flexible and have multiple templates ready to go. With our resume builder, you can have access to our entire collection of free and premium resume templates!
ATS-Friendly Resume Pros And Cons
ATS Resume Pros
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Compatible with applicant tracking systems: ATS are used more and more frequently in the job hiring process. By making your resume ATS-friendly, you can be sure that your resume will not be rejected simply due to avoidable formatting errors.
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Professional design: Since an ATS expects the professional standard resume format, using an ATS resume template ensures a high-quality application.
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Multipurpose: ATS resumes can be submitted for any other type of job application that doesn’t use an applicant tracking system.
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Easy to customize: An ATS resume template, such as ours, provides a framework that you can adapt to meet your specific professional goals.
ATS Resume Cons
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Can’t use images or graphics: If you are in a creative field that expects images or graphics, then an ATS resume format will limit your options.
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Extra time: This process requires additional edits and review to ensure ATS compatibility.
Make A Great ATS-Resume
Use our resume builder and gain access to our entire collection of ATS resume templates.
Designed and maintained by career experts, our builder asks a few questions and then autogenerates an ATS-friendly resume with customizable suggestions and formats.
Save yourself valuable time and energy, and get your resume in minutes!
ATS Resume FAQ
Updated: April 17, 2023
An applicant tracking system, or ATS, is software that automates and manages parts of the hiring process. This includes posting job descriptions, receiving applications, and parsing resumes and cover letters to detect potential candidates.
All job applicants must consider the ATS resume scanning process because it is increasingly common. Job recruiters and hiring managers use applicant tracking systems to save time filtering out unqualified candidates or irrelevant applications.
When an ATS scans a resume, it looks for predetermined criteria based on certain keywords or phrases in the job description. Then it ranks resumes based on the number of criteria met.
Resumes with the most criteria are given more attention than those with less. Resumes that do not meet a bare minimum of criteria are excluded from consideration.
If you do not make your resume ATS-friendly, and the ATS cannot read it or detect enough keywords, you could be rejected, even if you have the skills and experience for the job.
An ATS-friendly resume template is any resume formatted to be scannable by an applicant tracking system. This means the resume needs to present information in a way that the ATS expects, such as providing specific headings, text with job description buzzwords, and a compatible file format.
The best way to get your resume passed by an ATS is to use a template and follow best practices. Best practices for an ATS resume include:
- Using a DOC file when possible, PDF when necessary.
- Removing any graphics or images.
- Using the reverse chronological resume format.
- Using bullets to provide detail.
- Providing standard headings for sections, such as “work experience”.
- Using keywords from the job description.
- Providing numeric quantifiable data.
- Using the date format mm/yyyy or [month] [year], such as “07/2023” or “July 2023”.
- Clarifying acronyms and abbreviations.
- Using a standard font such as Arial or Times New Roman.
The best format for ATS is the reverse chronological resume. This is because the structure emphasizes work experience, which is what most recruiters and hiring managers are interested in. Therefore, most ATS expect the work experience section of a resume to be found at a certain point with bulleted information for each job title.
Word (DOC) files are better for ATS because most systems can parse through the document a lot easier than a PDF. However, it is good practice to have both DOC and PDF versions of your resume in case an application requests a specific file format.
It is not guaranteed that all Google Docs and Microsoft Word resume templates will be ATS-friendly because it depends on how the document is formatted and saved. For example, templates containing graphics that are saved as images may not be read by the ATS.
Graphics and images are not recommended for making an ATS-friendly resume. This is because a graphic or image may contain additional data that the ATS cannot scan, resulting in computation errors.
Yes, an ATS also scans cover letters. This means you need to be just as focused on writing an ATS-friendly cover letter as much as an ATS-friendly resume. Similar guidelines need to be followed, including:
Proper file format.
No graphics or images.
Keywords from the job description.
Check out our free cover letter templates, or use our cover letter builder to ensure your application is ready for any ATS!
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