Lying Liars and the Truth About Your Job Search

Y’ALL.

I am so fit to be tied right now.

My friends know I have this funny hobby of raging against bad ATS advice (lies) on social media. Today I was tagged in just such a post. I won’t link it here (and frankly, there are SO MANY to choose from) but this one hit me especially stupid because the poster claimed to have WORKED IN ATSs FOR 14 YEARS.

If that’s true, you know better.

I looked at the person’s background – some HR stuff, so yeah, maybe part of SELECTING an ATS, or asking for certain features. If this person is ACTUALLY MAKING THE CLAIM that the ATS does… well, let’s just look shall we? Here’s what the poster had to say –

You are applying through the ATS which is going to screen your resume “out”.

90% of jobseekers resumes are not ATS Friendly hence not getting interviews.

False. In other words, you’re lying.

Let’s break it down, shall we?

The ATS is going to “screen you out”
The ATS does NOTHING ZIP ZILCH NADA without a human telling it to. While some systems use “knock out” questions MOST recruiters (and believe me, I’ve asked HUNDREDS) still review resumes one by one. Search strings and filters can only go so far, and most ATSs are simply NOT that advanced.

90% of job seeker resumes are not “ATS friendly”
This is so utterly meaningless I don’t even know where to start. I personally see resumes as ATTACHMENTS. It’s worked this way in Taleo, both business and enterprise editions. I’ve seen it in iCIMS. I’ve also seen this in homegrown systems used by Microsoft, Google, and Amazon. “ATS friendly” is such a ridiculously stupid statement it cracks my brain.

The only thing that comes even REMOTELY CLOSE to explaining this, is the problem with parsing. When you upload your resume, the ATS “should” recognize certain words (like your name) and put them in the name field. This doesn’t always happen. If you have charts and pictures and colors, the ATS can be confused and ask you to reenter all your info. This has NOTHING to do with how a recruiter sees your resume. Again, it’s an ATTACHMENT. In all it’s colorful, charts and pictures glory. Now if those resumes are RECRUITER friendly is a whole other topic – the point being, the recruiter STILL SEES IT.

But Amy, why do you care?

Great question. I ask myself all the time why I bother. Thought leaders gotta think, I suppose. Think of ways to manipulate desperate job seekers with their made up statistics and scare tactics, it seems. The bottom line for me – I care too much about my industry to stay quiet. And I work too hard to bust recruiting myths to sit quietly when people say things that are verifiably not true. Ultimately, this doesn’t hurt ME – the next time I’m looking for a role, I know better to fall for this kind of nonsense. I live and breathe recruiting – but so many others DON’T.

I also reached out to the original poster, only to find my comment DELETED and I was BLOCKED. So much for transparency, eh? Makes you wonder what they’re afraid of. Truth, is my guess.

I’ve talked elsewhere about how recruiters view resumes. The MOST important thing a job seeker can do to improve their chances is to make it clear on the resume how you fit the role you’re applying to. That’s it.

No magic format. No secret template. No bots to beat.

If you’re a job seeker struggling with getting your resume noticed, start with my All About Resumes playlist. Most questions will hopefully be answered there, but between the blog and the channel, I try to provide actual, real world guidance that you can use in your job search IMMEDIATELY – no strings attached. I also wrote a post breaking down your job search into 5 easy steps – check that out HERE. And don’t forget The Truth About The ATS playlist too.

Good luck out there, and don’t let the bastards get you down.