In This Episode
- Use a one-column resume for the applicant tracking system. According to Patrick, many systems use OCR technology that reads two columns as one long line, so the information you crafted carefully can come out scrambled.
- If you hand your resume directly to a person, a two-column layout is fine. Patrick's checklist advice is one column for the ATS and two columns for a human reader.
- Don't assume every company's ATS is filtering you with AI. Patrick says some systems use keyword and knockout-question filtering, while others have every candidate reviewed by hand, so your mileage may vary.
- Aim for a resume that passes a quick skim. Patrick looks for clean layouts, good typography, line spacing and a clear hierarchy of information, and he treats it as an information architecture challenge.
- Generative AI can help you reword your resume and case study PDFs to fit the keywords in a job description, according to Patrick.
Episode Summary
The biggest ATS resume myth for UX and product people is that you should use a two-column layout, and my guest Patrick Neeman says that’s wrong. Patrick is Director of UX Design, AI Experiences at Workday and a former hiring manager. He explained that many applicant tracking systems use a form of OCR to convert your PDF or Word document into text, and some of that technology, apart from the addition of AI, hasn’t changed since 1992. The result is that columns get read as one big line, and all the information you carefully crafted stops working.
His advice is simple: use one column for the ATS and two columns if you’re handing your resume to a person. I was relieved to hear this, because it’s what we teach inside Career Strategy Lab. I also added that the version that gets into the system will likely still be seen by a human, so it still needs white space and a readable font size.
We also talked about what actually happens inside these systems. Some use knockout questions, so a wrong answer or missing keyword can filter you out. Others, Patrick said, require him to review every candidate by hand. If you want a step-by-step approach, how to optimize your resume for the ATS goes deeper, and this episode on the Applicant Tracking System covers more of the basics.
Patrick named a few more misconceptions: that companies are good at hiring, that every ATS has AI in it, and that recruiters are the most organized people in the world. He also described how he skims resumes quickly, and what he looks for in a resume that holds up. For more of his perspective as a hiring manager, listen to Patrick on soft skills, strategy and hiring red flags.
This episode is a segment of my full interview with Patrick. Listen to the full conversation here.
Frequently Asked Questions
01Should a UX resume be one column or two columns for the ATS?
02Why does a two-column resume fail in an applicant tracking system?
03Do applicant tracking systems automatically reject candidates?
04Do recruiters really spend six seconds on a resume, and what helps a UX resume pass that skim?
Show Notes & Links
Episode Transcript
Patrick Neeman [00:00:00]: And the biggest tip that I give is around don’t do a two-column layout for an applicant tracking system. And here’s why. A lot of them use a form of OCR. So, they bring in the PDF for the Word document and they convert it to something that the applicant tracking system can understand. And the one thing you have to remember about optical character recognition which is called OCR. Some of that technology except for the addition of AI hasn’t changed since 1992. And so, what happens is it goes column one. Oh, look and then there’s a column two. It sees it as one big line.
Sarah Doody [00:00:35]: So in case you don’t know Patrick, Patrick Neeman is the director of UX and AI experiences at Workday and he’s led UX design for enterprise applications across a lot of different industries and has really honed in on this niche of generative AI, machine learning, and also design systems. And he is the author of UX GPT, Mastering AI Assistants for UX Designers and Product Managers.
Patrick Neeman [00:01:07]: I worked at a company called Jobvite, which was applicant tracking. And I worked for just under three years. And part of my job was to interview recruiters and hiring managers. And then, you know, my career went in and I was hiring a lot of designers and everything.
Sarah Doody [00:01:23]: Before I forget, I want to go back to what you said about your experience recently and trying to hire these people and your applicant tracking system, I think you said, filtered out everyone. Did I get that right?
Patrick Neeman [00:01:38]: All applicant tracking systems have a level of filtering built based on certain keywords if they’re configured right. They’re actually narrowed down in certain keywords. The one thing that generative AI is really good is rewording stuff so they fit the keywords. We’re actually focusing on that. And so, that might be one way of using it to actually improve the resume and also improve the case studies like the PDFs to help get ahead of other people.
Sarah Doody [00:02:03]: Yeah. So, I want to just stay on this topic of the applicant tracking system because I keep seeing articles, I’m sure you do too, about how like AI is changing, hiring, etc. And I think to myself, software like Jobvite, Workday, etc., there has always been an element of, depending on the software, auto filtering people based on essentially knockout questions. Is that correct? Yeah. Like if you, if the job says you need to be in the United States and you’re in Chile and you apply for the job and they have that configured, then you are going to receive the no message, you know? In theory, right?
Patrick Neeman [00:02:49]: That’s absolutely correct. Like what they do is they sometimes, certain applicant tracking systems have what they call knockout questions.
Sarah Doody [00:02:56]: Yes, exactly.
Patrick Neeman [00:02:57]: And so, I’ve been involved in designing that. And if you give a wrong answer or you have a wrong keyword, they’re going to knock you out. There are other applicant tracking systems and I’m not going to name the brands because I have to be careful about that. But there are other ones that I have to review every single candidate by hand. Mainly because designers are a special snowflake with the way that we evaluate them. And so, the only way to do was like looking at the linking and looking at the, or the resume and looking at the portfolio to figure out are they a good fit. And so, it really depends on the applicant tracking systems and a lot of the applicant tracking system companies are actually kind of small. So, they don’t have the actual talent on staff to actually do all these really elaborate schemes around AI. So, really just your mileage may vary and there are a bunch of tools out there that help optimize for different applicant tracking systems.
Patrick Neeman [00:03:52]: So, I’d recommend going to one of them.
Sarah Doody [00:03:55]: So, if you could give people just one tip on what they can do like the biggest bang for their buck changes to their resume to try and increase their visibility to and in the applicant tracking system, what would you tell them?
Patrick Neeman [00:04:12]: Let me go get the article. I think I got it. Let me go find it. So, I’ve done a lot of mentoring off of ADPList and there’s this one story that I talk about quite a bit and I’m going to go get the story. It’s a checklist of resources and how to think about it. And the biggest tip that I give is around don’t do a two-column layout for an applicant tracking system. And here’s why. A lot of them use a form of OCR. So, they bring in the PDF for the Word document and they convert it to something that the applicant tracking system can understand. And the one thing you have to remember about optical character recognition which is called OCR. Some of that technology except for the addition of AI hasn’t changed since 1992. And so, what happens is it goes column one. Oh, look and then there’s a column two. It sees it as one big line. And so, basically all the information that you so carefully crafted for the applicant tracking system doesn’t work because it converts it to a text file.
Patrick Neeman [00:05:11]: And this is a problem I see around document parsing and intelligence across the board is if there are tables or columns or anything it just doesn’t understand the system. So, part of this is literally like having my checklist of do I would advise do one column for ATS’s and two columns if you’re handing the resume to a person.
Sarah Doody [00:05:32]: Thank goodness because that’s what we teach here inside Career Strategy.
Patrick Neeman [00:05:36]: Yeah. And every once in a while somebody says, well, you should always do a two column layout. And I’m like, no. Because I know how the technology works because of my day job. It’s an incorrect statement.
Sarah Doody [00:05:48]: Yeah. And you always have to remember that that version that gets into the applicant tracking system likely will be seen by a human. So, you still need to make sure that it’s not all eight point font and no white space and stuff. So, there’s multiple users of your resume. So, glad we cleared that one up. right so we already kind of covered this one but maybe there’s another answer that will pop into your mind but you know when it comes to the software that is used in hiring are there any other misconceptions that candidates may have apart from you know to call them resume and if it’s auto rejecting people which we already talked about
Patrick Neeman [00:06:29]: yeah let’s go back to the ATS and misconceptions misconception number one companies are really good at hiring they’re not
Sarah Doody [00:06:36]: and why is that
Patrick Neeman [00:06:37]: they they usually not have a clear idea of who they want to hire or even what the what the description should be and and a lot of them that what they do is they pull a description out the internet and use that and don’t you don’t usually edit it we have you know we’re working we actually provide tools to help them out with that but a lot of companies don’t really pay attention to that or they don’t even know how to structure the interview process and that’s the one that I’ve seen to thinking that all applicant tracking systems have all this AI in it you know the one that I work on has it but a lot of them don’t anyway because they just they aren’t that that technologically advanced they don’t have a team for it
Sarah Doody [00:07:15]: yeah
Patrick Neeman [00:07:16]: number three thinking that like recruiters are the most organized people in the world they’re not so like they you know it’s basically they get buried with a whole bunch of resumes and do you talk about the six seconds study?
Sarah Doody [00:07:28]: No but tell us about it
Patrick Neeman [00:07:30]: so there they did this study at the ladders and this was like decade and a half ago and they talk about how long do recruiters look at a resume and they did eye tracking and they found it to be six seconds on average and so it’s actually true because I would take like a 20 second glance of do they doesn’t look like a resume does it look like a case study and then based on the design if it’s to elaborate or for you know if it’s something I don’t think it’s going to be a fit then I would you know basically put it in the reject list and then I do a first pass and then I do a second pass and then I figure out who I want to interview right and so literally it almost becomes like this winnowing down to getting down to the first one and it’s never a fair process and so the way that I the advice I’ve given is like the world’s an unfair place make an unfair for somebody else so you got to figure out a way of standing up and it’s kind of challenging now
Sarah Doody [00:08:29]: and so in the spirit of like let’s help candidates control what they can control in the job search thinking back to like resumes that have stood out to you you know what might pass that six second test
Patrick Neeman [00:08:45]: clean layouts good typography really good line spacing really good hierarchy of information it’s an information architecture challenge and really I actually don’t want it to be too creative does that make sense?
Sarah Doody [00:09:02]: Yeah
Patrick Neeman [00:09:03]: I work in enterprise like if you’re working consumer if you’re going artistic that’s fine but I work in enterprise
Sarah Doody [00:09:09]: So thank you for giving us your time to be able to share your real life experience as someone on the other side of hiring.
Patrick Neeman [00:09:17]: Thank you.
Sarah Doody [00:09:17]: Thanks. Thanks, Patrick. Bye.
