How to optimize your resume for the ATS so you can get more UX job interviews

Sarah Doody [00:00:00]: Do not get overly creative or cute with what you call the sections on your resume because the applicant tracking system might not be able to find it. So for your about me section, just say about me or summary. Don’t say my story or my career journey or my wonderful career path or whatever. Just be literal and boring. Hey there. I’m Sarah Doody, host of the career strategy podcast. Many professionals are seeking more impact, flexibility, growth, and let’s face it, getting paid what they’re worth. But how do you unlock this in your career? It starts with strategy.

Sarah Doody [00:00:43]: I’m taking you behind the scenes of what’s working for my career coaching clients. You’ll hear strategies and actionable, yet sometimes against the grain, advice for how you can be the CEO of your career and stop dreading Alright. We are recording, which means we are ready to go here. Creating a resume that beats the ATS and leads to more job interviews, that is probably one of your goals for this month, this quarter, this year. Even if you’re not in a current job search right now, it is so important to have your resume ready to go for two reasons. Number one, in case you are impacted by an unexpected layoff or in case an awesome opportunity comes your way. So we are gonna talk about why you need to have two versions of your resume, what those versions are, and what those look like. Number two, how we’re going to format your resume so that it matches the requirements of the software that recruiters and hiring managers use.

Sarah Doody [00:02:00]: And we’re gonna end this out with three mistakes to avoid to help your resume stand out now. In case we haven’t met yet, my name is Sarah Doody. I’m user researcher and experienced designer. I’ve been in this industry since the early mid two thousands. I’ve worked in different types of some companies, sizes of companies, whether that was startups or UX agencies or consulting with companies. And more recently, I have harnessed all of my UX research and experience design skills and experience into creating this world of career strategy lab, which is a UX and product career coaching program. I’m also the host of a podcast, the Career Strategy Podcast. And in career strategy lab, we help you do mainly these five things, everything related to your job search, whether that’s creating a career road map, your resume, which we’re gonna talk about today, job search, relationships, networking, case studies, portfolio, personal brand, all of that stuff.

Sarah Doody [00:03:06]: So that’s what I’m all about. But let’s jump into why do you need two versions of your resume? So you’ve all heard the word ATS, applicant tracking system. If you’ve not, now you have. What does that actually mean, though? Essentially, applicant tracking system is the broad name for software that companies use to organize applicants when they are hiring. Some examples of this software, Jobvite, Workday, Workable, Greenhouse, Breezy, you probably are aware of others. But, you know, think about it. Part of what I want to do today is help you put yourself in the shoes of recruiters and hiring managers so you can stop complaining about how crappy they are at their jobs and start tailoring your resume to what they are looking for and understand some of the things that happen behind the scenes. So they use this software to organize all the applicants because you see the numbers.

Sarah Doody [00:04:16]: When you are looking at a job posting, oftentimes, there’s it says there’s hundreds of applicants. Right? Or you see recruiters post on LinkedIn that they received hundreds of applicants. So recruiters and hiring managers need a way to organize all these people. Right? Because just sifting through all that in email is not sustainable. So they use applicant tracking software. Now, what is that doing? These are just a few random screenshots of different applicant tracking software, where you can see they’re able to pull up your resume in this software. Some of the software down at the bottom left will do some light ranking vetting of candidates. Now this software is not just automatically deciding are you going to get an interview or not.

Sarah Doody [00:05:09]: There are humans who are deciding that. However, some of the software will mark you as a, let’s say, unqualified candidate if you don’t meet, let’s say, hard requirements of the job posting. So even yesterday, I saw someone post on LinkedIn, like, why do companies say they’re hiring for a role and you must live in x y z countries or states or provinces? Well, it’s because in order for a company to hire in various states, provinces, countries, etcetera, that company has to set up their business as an entity in those locations, and all of that creates time, money, paperwork, etcetera, to hire people. And some companies don’t have that kind of time, money, etcetera. Right? I even did this, like, two years ago where I was hiring for roles, and I focused it on specific states because I didn’t wanna have to set up a new entity in, like, three new states if I wanted to hire people in three different literal states. So that is my little caveat on that. But you can see here, we’re looking at this candidate named Matt, and it’s showing, okay, Matt ranks like this on these skills or a fit for the role, etcetera. But the bigger question is, like, how does the software, the applicant tracking system, decide, like, what information is it using? So we’re gonna get to that in a second.

Sarah Doody [00:06:46]: But let’s zoom out because I’m a user experience designer. I think of people and how they do things. So let’s think about what happens when you apply for a job. So you over here in the purple, you’re applying for a job, and then your resume is going into the applicant tracking system. When you hit apply or submit and it’s going into Workday or Greenhouse or whatever, it’s going into that applicant tracking system. And that is where resumes your resume is parsed. Parsed just means, like, read or scanned. Okay? So your resume is parsed through keyword matching.

Sarah Doody [00:07:33]: So, essentially, the applicant tracking software is looking at the job description and looking at your resume and deciding how well do these match. Okay? And that’s how the applicant tracking system is then like, okay. Matt is a 3.7 out of five, maybe. So that’s how that happens at a high level. Then, of course, there are humans involved. Right? The people in recruiting, HR, the hiring managers, etcetera. And they’re deciding, okay, based on this list of people, here’s the ones we wanna invite to an interview. Here are the ones we wanna continue in the interview process.

Sarah Doody [00:08:15]: Here’s the ones we’re gonna offer a job to. So why do we need two versions of our resume? It’s because of this first step. After you hit apply, we want your resume to be able to be read or parsed by the applicant tracking system so that the applicant tracking system says to the recruiters and hiring managers, hey. This person looks like a really good match. And if you’re applying to jobs right now and you’re not getting interviews, the first place I would start in trying to troubleshoot why you’re not getting interviews is this step, because this is kinda like the first line of defense in your ability to get the interviews. So let’s keep going. Okay? So this is resume. It’s got two columns.

Sarah Doody [00:09:06]: Nice. Got some experience over here, skills, tools, whatever. Now let’s pretend that you have just applied to a job with this resume. So how is the applicant tracking system reading or parsing the resume? Most of you think that the applicant tracking system is just reading left to right like a human. Right? So what we this is the resume, and over at the right is what we think the applicant tracking system reads or sees. We think, and I’m gonna annotate here, that it starts here and it’s like senior product designer, June twenty nineteen, and then it comes back to the next line. Sorry for my drawing. But, you know, like a human, and it knows that there’s a column here.

Sarah Doody [00:09:53]: Right? You think that’s what’s happening, and then it goes and reads the next bullet and the next bullet and the next bullet. That’s what you think is happening. What happens in reality is that the applicant tracking system doesn’t always know where columns start and stop. And this is a really, really important point I wanna try and make here. So the applicant tracking system doesn’t know there’s a column right here. Okay? And so when it reads your resume, it starts and it sees experience, and then it goes across over to skills. So that’s why I’m showing, like, experience, skills. And then it goes to senior product designer, June twenty nineteen, October twenty nineteen.

Sarah Doody [00:10:39]: And then instead of going down to the next line, it goes right over to research. And so it starts combining the content of your bullets with the content over here at the right column, and then it just gets all garbled for lack of better word. And this is why even if you have great bullet points and you have good content on your resume, because of this use of columns, it can make it hard for the applicant tracking system to actually evaluate and understand the information in your resume. So big, big point here. Applicant tracking system doesn’t know when columns start and stop all the time. Maybe some of the more sophisticated ones do, but this is why it’s so so important that we have two versions of your resume. One that is optimized for this applicant tracking system, the other one that is optimized for essentially humans. And the human version can be two columns because it’s easier for our eyes to skim and scan information when it’s in these two columns, etcetera.

Sarah Doody [00:11:46]: We’re not gonna go into the nuances of that, but I’m trying to give you, like, like, the one zero one most important stuff you need to know to get your resume visible and understandable to the applicant tracking system. And so some of you might be thinking, well, does all software work like this? Like, what if this one might understand it? Who cares? What we need to do is design for the lowest common denominators, and so isn’t it better just to be safe and make a one column resume so that we don’t risk that our information in our resume is not understood by the applicant tracking system. Okay. So we’re gonna make the one column resume, and here is how we are gonna format it. Obviously, one column. We’re not gonna use two columns. So if you have a two column one, that’s fine. Use it when you’re sending it to that recruiter that says, hey.

Sarah Doody [00:12:43]: Send me your resume. Your friend is like, hey. My team is hiring. Send me your resume. Fine. Send them that one. But if you’re clicking apply in Workday, Jobvite, etcetera, you wanna do this to column one. Another thing we want to pay really, really close attention to is not using charts, graphs, etcetera, for your skills.

Sarah Doody [00:13:07]: I know that if you go into various places where you can get resume templates, you are gonna see a lot of overly designed resumes. And those resumes are just created by graphic designers and people who wanna make money selling resume templates. They are not all thinking about the usability of the resume. They’re more thinking about what it looks like, and oftentimes, these are just overly designed. And one thing that recruiters and hiring managers don’t like is the use of these charts, graphs, etcetera, because it’s so subjective. Like, what does I’m proficient 68% in accounting mean? Like, there’s no benchmark. Right? The other more important reason not to use these charts and graphs, etcetera, is that the applicant tracking system can’t understand them. Right? So don’t use them.

Sarah Doody [00:14:12]: It’s a big red flag for recruiters and hiring managers, and the applicant tracking system literally can’t understand graphics. Right? So we’re not gonna use graphics, etcetera. Another really important point I wanna make here is that you don’t wanna use overly creative section titles. And by section titles, I mean experience and skills and tools. That’s what I mean when I say don’t use overly creative wording or phrases for section titles. And why is that? Well, the applicant tracking system is looking for section titles. Right? It’s looking for about me. It’s looking for skills.

Sarah Doody [00:15:00]: It’s looking for work history. It’s looking for awards or volunteer or whatever. So do not get overly creative or cute with what you call the sections on your resume because the applicant tracking system might not be able to find it. So for your about me section, just say about me or summary. Don’t say my story or my career journey or my wonderful career path or whatever. Just be literal and boring. Same thing with, like, work history. Right? Just call it work history or work experience, not stuff like companies I’ve impacted, contributions, how I’ve made my mark in the world of UX or whatever.

Sarah Doody [00:15:49]: Just be boring and literal so that the applicant tracking system and, frankly, it makes it easier for humans to spot that information as the humans are kinda skimming and scanning your resume, and the applicant tracking systems are parsing your resume also. So that is really, really important. Be literal and boring with the section titles that you put on your resume. Okay. Now I wanna give you three mistakes to avoid so your resume can stand out. Number one, don’t limit your resume to one page. I know if you go on LinkedIn or Google this, you’re gonna get opinions on both sides of this, frankly, myth, I think, in my opinion. So I’m gonna tell you the rationale behind why I am so opposed to the one page resume, And then you can decide if you agree with me or not.

Sarah Doody [00:16:52]: And maybe let me know in the chat if you agree. But why a one page resume is bad in my opinion? And I’ve been doing this since 2017, so I’ve seen a lot of resumes. And I’ve also helped a lot of people get hired, so I know what resumes work. And what happens when you make a one page resume is that you end up selling yourself short because you often eliminate information in order to make your resume be on one page. And now some of you might be thinking, well, why make it longer if I know they only spend six seconds on it? Here’s why. Because if you create a resume that provides detail that is easy to read and consume, they’ll probably spend more than six seconds on your resume. Right? So if you give them a reason to spend more than six seconds, they will. And if your resume is only one page and it kind of just scratches the surface of what you’ve done, they’re not really going to learn that much about you and you’ll probably sell yourself short.

Sarah Doody [00:18:02]: The other mistakes with the one page resume is that oftentimes people will use a really, really small font to make everything fit on one page. And guess what? That makes it really hard for recruiters and hiring managers to read. Sometimes also, in addition to this small font, you often, compromise on the amount of white space between parts of the information on your resume, and so everything is smooshed together, and it looks really, really dense, and it’s just hard to consume. So that is why I’m not a fan of these one page resumes. Number two, don’t use the same resume for every job you apply to. Now I know you probably seen on LinkedIn. People say you have to tailor your resume for each role you apply to, and a lot of people say, well, that’s creating too much work. I don’t have that kind of time, etcetera.

Sarah Doody [00:18:57]: I’m not saying let’s make a brand new resume, rewrite the whole thing for every single job. The key word here is tailor. We wanna tailor the resume for every role. Now this requires that you read the job description, and I know many of you don’t read the job description, but here’s the thing. The job descriptions provide clues as to exactly what your resume should include, such as specific phrases, skills, software, methodologies, etcetera. And so when you take time to actually read the job description, you’re able to identify maybe software that is mentioned a couple of times or areas of expertise that are mentioned a couple of times. And when you start to see those things repeated in the job description or blatantly put out in, like, you must do x y z, you want to have that on your resume because your resume is kind of like a list of receipts that show that you have done what is on the job description. Now what exactly can you tailor on your resume? Let’s take a look.

Sarah Doody [00:20:15]: Four things you could tailor. Right? You could tailor what goes up here. In this case, this is for a senior UX researcher, but maybe depending on the job you’re applying to, you tweak that. Now, of course, if the job description says, like, UX researcher two, because at the company you’re applying to, they have, like, numerical levels of researchers. I wouldn’t recommend you literally put UX researcher two, but use your own judgment there to try and make that title very, very much aligned with what you’re applying to. Next thing, the about me. Every resume should have a little about me. Rationale here is that if they only read this and nothing else on your resume, you want that to provide an excellent snapshot of your experience to draw them in and make them want to read the rest of your resume.

Sarah Doody [00:21:14]: So you might tweak that about me. Maybe if you’re applying to a company in health care, you make sure it says health care in that about me. And maybe you ditch other industries you’ve worked in, in this case, travel and finance, to put more emphasis on the fact that you have seven years of experience in health care, maybe. Two other things you can tailor on your resume here, company summary. Every single part of your job history should have a company summary, because this is an opportunity to, number one, tell people what the company was about, because chances are there’s probably companies on your resume that the person looking at your resume has not heard of. But even if you have worked at a household company like Google, Microsoft, Home Depot, Delta Airlines, whatever, this company summary is a great place to provide context around the exact things you worked on, whether it’s part of the product, the size of the team, whether it was, like, a remote team or whatever. That’s the third thing. And then the fourth is the literal bullet points.

Sarah Doody [00:22:19]: You could even just reorder the bullet points. So, like, if this bullet point is very much aligned with what is in the job description, move it up to the first bullet point. Right? You might end up removing some bullet points because you’re like, this is great experience, but it’s not totally aligned with stuff mentioned in the job description. And you also might end up, you know, tweaking some of the bullets. Maybe you add in, like, names of software that’s mentioned in the job description. So those are four ways that you can tailor your resume to the job description. And those four changes are going to be pretty quick. This is not like a five hour activity to change your resume for every job you apply to.

Sarah Doody [00:23:06]: Like, we’re doing this quick, and you don’t have to do all four of these every single time. Maybe you’re just doing one or two, but don’t skip this step. Okay. Number three, don’t keyword stuff your resume. Yes. People do this, and let me show you. People will often put keywords hidden on their resume in a white font to try and hide them. But the applicant tracking system can see those, and some of the applicant tracking systems can detect, like, if the word user research is on your resume a hundred times, there’s a possibility that it be might be like, wait a sec.

Sarah Doody [00:23:48]: This person’s, like, cheating. Essentially. Not really. But you know what I mean? So don’t do that. It just it’s like a it just makes you look bad. And if a recruiter sees that, they’re not they’re not gonna be too impressed with that either. Alright. So that’s it, guys.

Sarah Doody [00:24:04]: So let’s do a quick recap here. We need two versions of your resume. We need the applicant tracking system version and the human version. Applicant tracking system is not going to have two columns. We’re not gonna overly design our resumes with skill charts. Also, might I add, like, your resume does not need a little logo you made for yourself or watermarks or, like, graphics and stuff all over it. Like, the resume is not an opportunity to try out your graphic design skills. The resume is about showing people that you have the experience on the job description and making it easy for them to read.

Sarah Doody [00:24:48]: And not all design is always, quote, beautiful. Like, if you think of Craigslist, is Craigslist going to win, like, awards? Probably not. But why does Craigslist work? Because it’s ugly and boring, and it lets people get the information they need in a very timely fashion. So keep Craigslist in mind when you’re working on your resumes. Alright. Your resume can and should be more than one page, and we are going to tailor our resumes to the roles we apply to. I hope you guys have some actionable stuff to do on your resume today, or maybe you did it, or you’re gonna do it this weekend or something. And that is all.

Sarah Doody [00:25:35]: Thank you guys so much for coming. You can find me on LinkedIn. You can find me on Instagram, and you can also find me on my website, careerstrategylab.com. Alright, guys. Thanks for coming. Have a great, great rest of your day. Bye, everyone. Thanks for listening to the career strategy podcast.

Sarah Doody [00:25:56]: Make sure sure to follow me, Sarah Doody, on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, or LinkedIn. If anything in today’s episode resonated with you, I’d love to hear about it. Tag me on social media or send me a DM. And lastly, if you found this episode helpful, I’d really appreciate it if you could share it with a friend or give us a quick rating on Spotify or review on Apple Podcasts. Catch you later.