The Top 3 Ways to Get Your Resume Noticed in an Applicant Tracking System

In today’s competitive marketplace, applying for a job can be an exercise in frustration.  The endless resume submission process can feel like a black hole when you don’t receive a response. What can you do to get your resume past the gatekeeper and increase your chances of getting an interview?

As more and more recruiters are leveraging technology in their recruitment processes, here are 3 noteworthy tips to help get your resume reviewed faster!

1. Tweak Your Resume

In the old days, that gatekeeper was often a secretary or maybe an HR hiring manager. However, many companies are now using applicant tracking systems (ATS) to find the best candidates and eliminate manual processes like sorting through a pile of resumes. Before your application reaches someone in HR, it will first be reviewed through this ATS software.

Luckily, once you understand a few key elements of applicant tracking software, it’s not as daunting as it might sound. The truth is, if you include all of your accomplishments and relevant past experience in your resume, the applicant tracking system can pick up on your skills and show you as an excellent fit for the position.

2. Show Your Results

Every resume is stronger when it is results based.  Showing that you raised your department’s sales by 12% over your tenure shows sales and marketing skill—important for a sales and marketing position, which the ATS software will likely notice.  If you are applying for an entry level position and may not have past results to include, perhaps mention results from a significant club event you organized.

3. Make Sure You Fit the Requirements

If the position calls for someone with 5-7 years of experience and you have 3, the software will pass you over.  For that matter, so will the HR manager; therefore, make sure you fit the requirements as closely as possible and remain realistic in your job hunt.

The use of applicant tracking systems to help with the hiring process is continuing to grow in today’s corporate world. ATS software is designed to help both the recruiter/hiring manager and the candidate by streamlining the hiring process to allow for open positions to be filled more quickly. By applying a few of the key tactics outlined above to your resume before you hit the “submit” button, you’ll help ensure that your application will make it past the initial screening process and onto the desk of a hiring manager.

This guest post comes from iCIMS, which offers web-based applicant tracking system (ATS) solutions  for business of all sizes. iCIMS provides employee onboarding software to help streamline the hiring process in order to save time and reduce cost-per-hire. iCIMS’ talent management system can be tailored to fit your HR or recruiting needs. To learn more, visit their website or follow iCIMS on Twitter @iCIMS.

I love getting questions about what it’s like getting a job in HR. Today I’m giving C a hand with her questions (answering a little late, but better than never!).

As a generalist, what exactly is your job like? What kind of projects do you work on, etc?

Every day is fairly different in my role, though a generalist at a larger company might not be able to say that. For instance, in recent weeks I’ve worked on collecting and analyzing company-wide performance reviews, drafted open enrollment communications describing our changes to benefits and premiums, worked with one of our admins to develop an activity for our executive retreat, and worked with our managers to develop goals for their employees for the coming year. In the coming weeks I’m working to create our affirmative action plan, develop job descriptions for our employees, and evaluate a new benefits vendor. It truly is a little bit of everything!

The thing that intrigues me most about HR is the potential to help people and help turn the work environment and experience in general into something more enjoyable for and considerate of today’s workers. After seeing how HR seems to be transforming due to web-workers and companies like Zappos, it almost seems like HR is the frontline for effecting change in labor relations. 

How much of this is actually true? How much of your job (or any HR position for that matter) actually deals with actual employees or things that directly affect them and in what ways? How much influence do you have on your employees and their work environment as an HR person? 

Great question! Just like Zappos, we do a lot of culture building and sharing, and it’s really helped us to develop a strong, unified workforce. One of the barriers is the level of respect that HR gets in the business, though. In previous employers HR was expected to be a quiet, back corner admin function. And that’s all it was. At my current employer the HR function is involved in planning and strategy meetings at all levels.

In my job, I deal with employees on a daily basis. However, that’s not the norm. As a small company I have the opportunity to have a high-touch relationship with our employees. That means they get more individual value out of me, but it also means that it doesn’t scale. In other words, as we add employees, we’ll have to add more to the HR team or reduce the hands on interaction.

I have a bachelor’s in business administration and most of my experience is in customer service, product support, and some IT roles (about 8 years of customer service experience). In your opinion, how are these skills relevant to the career?

The degree is a good one. It might not give you the deep background an HR degree would, but it does give you better awareness of the other business functions and how HR ties into those.

I would say that customer service experience translates well to an entry t0 mid level HR role. The higher you go the less interaction you have with people directly, but at those lower levels you do more face-to-face interaction with managers and staff. One of the interesting things about the HR profession is that we have people from every conceivable type of background.

If you are working in a company that specializes in IT services, to use your example, being an HR person there would mean you understand what the employees’ jobs are like and how you can best help them to be successful. At my current employer, I had very little experience in the industry, but I obviously like writing, so I was given the Communications hat as well as the HR/recruiting one. It’s a great way they have decided to utilize my skills and interests to make the organization better.

Working off of the last question, should I be focused on completing a certification asap? If so, how should I prepare for the exam considering I don’t have experience in HR?

In order to get certified (PHR/SPHR), you now have to have several years of exempt level HR experience to take the exam. It’s not a huge bump up in terms of marketability as a candidate, even if you could get it, since you don’t really have experience. I’d focus instead on using your general business education to increase the value of the HR function.

I am in the process of starting a family. I have read salary surveys and such but what is the income potential really like in HR?

Honestly, it’s different everywhere. Here in Huntsville (which is one tiny market among thousands in the US and worldwide) an HR assistant can make from $20-30k, HR generalists 30-70k, HR directors/managers from 50-100k+, depending on experience level and industry. It varies wildly and depends on the value you are bringing the business.

A good company will look at how you are increasing their profitability or reducing costs and work hard to compensate you accordingly. Someone who files papers 8 hours a day is going to be less valuable than someone developing and rolling out a new pay for performance compensation strategy.

Are there any resources out there about LGBT representation within the career? I looked around but was pretty unsuccessful in finding anything substantial.

I am actually good friends with a few individuals who fall into that category. I am not sure if they are comfortable with me shouting it from this platform, but they certainly do exist. I would say HR people in general are more tolerant of other beliefs (we see too many not to be!). If you want more information on this specifically I can put you in touch with one of them since I have no personal experience with this issue.

And there you have it, C! I hope that helps and that you are still interested after that exposure. Good luck!
If anyone else has questions they’d like to ask, feel free to email me at ben@upstarthr.com. Thanks!

I’ve been working with my local SHRM chapter to set a student program for job shadowing. Questions and ideas are bouncing around in my head, and it’s going to be a great experience for both the students and the people who volunteer to help. I can still remember what it was like when I was trying to get my first job in HR (link), and I’d have killed for a chance to follow around a local HR pro for a day to see what it was like. I’m looking forward to helping them get their job shadowing questions answered!

What I plan to do

I’m going to take some time first thing to share some of my own tips and ideas for someone getting started in the field. That will set the stage for the rest of the day as a learning experience.

Next I’ll make sure I have a variety of tasks planned so they get a look at the facets of HR that I deal with-benefits, recruiting, employee relations, communication, etc. Some of those things are pretty routine for me, but for someone who is job shadowing, it would be pretty interesting. A few routine activities I might go with:

• Answering benefits questions, looking up our summary plan descriptions for details, and making changes to someone’s insurance/401(k)/compensation
• Call a candidate to schedule an interview or to do a culture-based interview, work on an offer letter and salary package, or sit in on an interview (phone interview would be easier with this one)
• Show how our performance management system works and what each person’s responsibilities are
• Give them a glimpse into the vendor selection process and how it works
• Develop an employee communication with a specific management characteristic in mind (how to have tough conversations, for example)

One thing I will definitely not do is plan a party, talk about being a “people person,” or do anything else that HR gets stuck with that isn’t really our responsibility. We aren’t party planners, darn it.

Finally I’ll wrap up the day with another short discussion on what they originally perceived and how it ended up being different. Interesting side note on this—I have someone in my office who is interested in getting into the HR field eventually. I could actually take that person through these exercises as well as a practice run and to give them the insights into the profession that they might not otherwise get. Fun stuff!

I’ve also kicked around the idea of creating a short document to give them that allows the job shadowing student the opportunity to give feedback and take notes. I’d personally like to see what they found interesting, because I plan to do it more than once and want to make it better for each person that visits.

Anyone else ever do a similar activity and have ideas to share? Does anyone have any job shadowing questions they’d like answered? 

My friend Chris Ponder at XtremeHR is asking people to share their own career stories. I’ve talked about my HR career before, but I thought it would be fun to participate in his project as a showing of support for this great idea. The back story of the challenge. I was supposed to answer the questions he asked in several shorter videos, but after being snowed in this week and having all kinds of crazy stuff come my way, I just shot it in one long video (my longest ever). This is my career story thus far with more detail than you ever imagined. At the very end I am on the verge of a coughing fit and you can barely understand me. Sorry ’bout that!

Email subscribers will have to click through to view the video.

This series was a lot of fun, and he will be doing something like this quarterly if you ever want to participate. Just in case you wanted to find them, here are the 3 sets of questions I answered.

• Why did you choose your profession and how did you get your foot into the profession?
• Based on your profession that you told us about in Question 1, let’s explore some career milestones…
• Based on your profession and career that you told us about in Question 1 and Question 2, let’s close this series with a bang! Career hits, misses, and hopes.

My friend Stephen started a new job this week. His post about first impressions is a fun read and will transport you back to the first days on the job. Click over and read it (should only take a minute or two). He asked for some tips/advice on how to spend those first days, and I wanted to share a few of my own thoughts here.

I am proud of you, my friend! They are very lucky to have you on board. I’m in the exact same position as you. Our company is split between two main locations, and I’m trying to support both areas. If possible, plan a trip to the other locale and give them plenty of notice in advance so they can prepare questions for you. I had that opportunity after being here only a few weeks and it was a great opportunity to meet them and make them more comfortable with me.

Find out what your senior leaders believe in. Like Steve mentioned, find out what is best about their culture and commit yourself to that. I found out that our senior leaders firmly believe in our core values, and I now try to tie those into any project I’m working on so it will have their support.

On the flip side, find out what they like least, but like Lisa said, keep from “doing” anything about it until you have time to see the big picture. There will be plenty of time later to fix what’s broken. The thing to do now is find out what is broken and why it hasn’t been fixed before now. Is it because it’s too costly, takes too much time, is a pet project of an executive, etc.?

Two things I’ve taken to doing when I first start a job:

• Immediately schedule a 1 month review with my manager and get it on the calendar.
• Start a draft Word document and write down everything you do that takes more than a few minutes. At the end of the day/week/month, you will be amazed at the things you’ve done since starting, and it will help you when you sit down with your manager to see if you are focusing on what is important to them.

Anyone else have ideas for the first days on the job?

Recently I got an email from someone looking for some information on early HR career type stuff. Thought it might be interesting for someone else out there as well.

Hello

My name is Jay, I’m a french economics student, I’m in second year in college.

I have a project to write about the job I want to do later in my life, and that’s working in human resources. I must ask questions to someone working in the sector and I’m wondering if you could answer some of my questions about your job ? By the way, if some of your blog posts answer my questions, please give me the links to them. And feel free to add anything that you find interesting, the more there is, the better Thanks in advance !

What and where did you study ? Did you have work experience during your studies ?
I have a degree in human resources management from Athens State University (a local college). I worked full time while I was in school and took classes at night. The job was not in HR, but I knew that’s where I wanted to be once I graduated.

Why did you chose to study/work in HR ? Continue Reading »

With my affinity for using “rock” as a verb, you just know I would love reading the book Perform Like a Rock Star (and still have time for lunch) by Orna Drawas. Receiving this book from my friends at the Cadence Group couldn’t have happened at a better time, because my new HR job is requiring me to work smarter (and harder) than ever before. Where it fits, I added the page numbers below to help you find the good stuff.

Some of the highlights

• CEOs rate the top two qualities they say will help someone advance in their career quickly as:
  • the ability to separate the relevant from the irrelevant
  • the ability to get the job done quickly
• Don’t prioritize your schedule. Schedule time for your priorities. And make sure it’s during your golden hour.
• Inbox zero (for your life)-Commit to using a list. Really using it. Anything that will take longer than two minutes to complete gets added onto the list. While it may seem urgent at the time, adding it to the list and then comparing priorities might shine the light on some false urgency. (p77) Continue Reading »