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Beat The ATS – How Applicant Tracking Systems Actually Work

Beat The ATS – How Applicant Tracking Systems Actually Work

The ATS isn’t new.

Applicant Tracking Systems have been around since the mid 90s and were used so recruiters and companies could organise all of their jobs and candidates in one single database.

Then they got a little more advanced.

The ATS could parse CVs (extract and recognise text) and make the database of CVs searchable.

The first ATS I ever used in the early 2000’s had this functionality, again this isn’t new technology.

It gave you the ability to search candidates based on the contents of their CV.

The Evolution Of The ATS

Over time Applicant Tracking Systems got more sophisticated, either via introducing new features or integrating with third party applications.

This included things like posting jobs to the careers sites and job boards automatically, sending automated emails, automating interviews by integrating with hiring managers calendars, building talent pools and knockout/killer questions – more on those later.

The ATS Today

There are over 400 Applicant Tracking Systems, remember this for later.

Some of the most common include Workday, Greenhouse, Taleo, Workable, ICIMS, but they all do more or less the same thing:

  • Store, manage and advertise jobs
  • Store candidate applications and CVs
  • Attach those candidates to the job they’ve applied for.
  • Manage and track where each candidate is in the process, including interviews
  • Search for candidates
  • Communicate with candidates
  • Allows recruiters to add notes to candidates

How Recruiters use the ATS

First we have a requisition (a job requirement) assigned to us.

We speak with the hiring manager, agree on what good looks like and then we advertise the job.

The ATS allows us to store the job advert and post it to multiple job boards at the click of the button.

Candidates apply for the job.

Next we open that requisition in the ATS. We see a long list of applicants, next to each we see:

  • Their CV
  • Any information parsed from the CV (varies massively by platform and setup)
  • Any information from the application form, usually contact info or answers to any killer/knockout questions.
  • Details of any other jobs at the company they’ve applied for.

Next we go through each CV one by one.

Any that look unsuitable we change their status to “Rejected”, this signals to the ATS to automatically fire off a rejection email to that candidate.

Any that are suitable, we change their status to “Under Review” or “Recruiter Screen” or whatever the first stage in our process happens to be.

We then follow the rest of the process in the ATS whether that’s adding notes from a conversation we had with you, changing your status to “Interview” and allocating you a timeslot etc. all the way until you reach the “Hired” status in the process.

If you’re a recruiter that currently has 20 positions/requisitions they’re working on, and hundreds of applicants for each, you can see why using an ATS is useful.

It helps manage the process for each job and stay organised.

You’ll notice I mentioned a “long list of applicants”.

How are these ordered? Well it varies by ATS and by how each company has configured the platform.

For some it’s just ordered by application date, for some it’s alphabetical, for others it might be on “closest match”.

A note on closest match – this isn’t new.

Based on information parsed from the CV and the Job Description, ATS have been able to rank matches based on matching keywords.

It was never very accurate.

Then came along AI.

The ATS and AI

AI hasn’t made ranking any more accurate than it was years ago.

It’s still highly unreliable and a lot of organisations don’t even turn this feature on in their ATS, those that do rarely trust it and manually review every CV, even those toward the bottom of the “ranking” list.

The other thing to consider is that companies are very reluctant right now to use AI to make any decisions, we’ve all heard about the Workday discrimination lawsuit.

Companies who are using AI in their hiring process are mostly using it to do things such as:

  • Search for candidates on social media & Linkedin
  • Write Job Descriptions
  • Taking notes in interviews
  • Assessments
  • Analyse their hiring data

A note on ATS Scores

Remember I said there are over 400 ATS platforms?

Each platform can also be customised by the company to meet their needs.

That means there is an infinite number of ways that an ATS can work.

As an example, Workday can work in two very different ways in two different companies depending on how it’s been configured.

So, how can any single CV writer or CV Writing Software claim to be able to guarantee a high CV score.

They can’t.

The only thing to remember, where an ATS is using AI to rank your CV, it’s matching it against a specific job description and it’s not doing it based on keywords, it uses NLP (natural language processing) to look at how well the CV matches against the job description.

TLDR: ATS Scores are not real.

Autorejections

I said we’d come back to knockout/killer questions.

The only time you’re auto-rejected is because of answers you gave in the application form.

For example:

  • You said you need visa sponsorship when the role requires full right to work.
  • You said no to a required qualification or certification.
  • You selected £100,000+ salary expectations for a £40k role.
  • You said you don’t have a driver’s licence when the job requires travel.

In these cases, the system can be set up to automatically reject your application before a recruiter even sees your CV.

But that’s not the ATS or AI being clever, it’s just filtering based on the form.

A Note On LinkedIn

LinkedIn is not an ATS.

Let’s get that clear, but you can get autorejected very quickly on this platform.

Not because of any killer questions or your CV, but your LinkedIn profile.

When advertising a job, recruiters can specify to auto-reject any applicants who are in a different country, or don’t have very specific skills listed on their profile.

It isn’t your CV.

Why The Myth Persists

Social Media largely and people hoping to take advantage of people’s frustrations and sometimes desperation when it comes to finding a job.

There’s been a perfect storm – economic uncertainty meaning there are less jobs, more people looking for work and the rise of AI.

So it’s really easy to spin a story claiming that AI/ATS is the reason finding a job is so hard right now, to sell you stuff you don’t need or to get clicks and views on social media.

What doesn’t help is that media outlets and even the UK Governments Job Help website are promoting this myth.

This advice on the Governments Job Help Page – Getting Through Applicant Tracking Systems is factually incorrect and not helping people.

I don’t know who wrote it, but my guess is that it’s somebody who has never used an ATS and they’ve not consulted anybody who has. They’ve just Googled stuff or reacted to what they’ve seen online.

Remember This

The ATS is not new, it’s been around since the mid 90s.

Auto-rejections are based on application forms not your CV.

There is no such thing as an ATS Score.

Recruiters use the ATS to receive applications and manage the hiring process.

So don’t worry about the ATS, don’t worry about keywords.

Write your CV for a human, a CV that clearly outlines your skills, experience and achievements.

If you need help, I’ve got a free CV template you can download here.

If you’re actively job searching

Start with these tools that thousands of jobseekers use every week:

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