Table of Contents
Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) are software used by recruiters to identify the best candidates and make hiring decisions more efficient. 99% of Fortune 500 companies and a growing number of small and mid-sized businesses rely on these systems for their recruitment needs. According to a report, the ATS market size is expected to grow at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 6.7% throughout the forecasted period, reaching USD 3.2 billion by 2026 from USD 2.3 billion in 2021.
As a candidate, you might be wondering why you should care when these systems were created for employers, not for you. Here’s a simple answer. It impacts your job search journey. Understanding how ATS work can help you create a best practice resume that wins interviews. So, keep on reading to know more about some of the prevalent ATS companies use in 2021.
1) iCIMS
iCIMs is also known as Internet Collaborative Information Management Systems. It is one of the leading ATS platforms supporting over 4,300 global brands across the retail, healthcare, manufacturing, and finance industries. Some of the companies that use iCIMS as their ATS include UPS, Hard Rock Café, Uber, PwC, and Heineken. Relevant candidates are assigned similarity scores, a non-numerical measurement of how well their background compares to the model candidate. A high score means you’re a strong match for the position. To identify the top applicants, recruiters may use keyword searches. In this case, including relevant keywords is essential to maximize your search result ranking.
One of the limitations of iCIMs is the system’s inability to parse URLs from the resume into the applicant profile. If you have your LinkedIn or portfolio’s URL in your resume, you need to show the entire URL and hyperlink it. iCIMs also assigns a date automatically if an exact employment date is not specified. To avoid any issues, use the MM/DD/YYYY format when writing dates on your resume.
2) SmartRecruiters
SmartRecruiters is an award-winning talent acquisition platform used by thousands of high-performance organizations for making the best hires. It is headquartered in California, USA, and has five office locations across Spokane, Poland, Germany, UK, and France. Companies like Visa, Etsy, McDonalds, and Equinox use SmartRecruiters as their ATS.
The system calculates the candidates’ match score by analyzing the experience, education, skills, and previous company from the application. Then, the information is compared against the job criteria. A score of 0 to 100 is assigned to each candidate based on the ATS interpretation of the candidate’s fit for the job.
Smartrecruiters prefer dates in the format of MM/YYYY – MM/YYYY or YYYY – YYYY. It does not recognize different tenses, abbreviations, or acronyms of skills and keywords. So, your resume keywords need to be an exact match to what is found in the job description. If you still have enough space on your resume, we suggest adding variations of keywords to account for recruiter searches.
3) Greenhouse
Greenhouse is a fast-growing provider of enterprise talent acquisition software. It has helped design and automate the hiring process of more than 4,000 companies. Booking.com, Cisco Meraki, Hubspot, Dropbox, InVision, and Wayfair are some of the leading organizations that hire using Greenhouse as their ATS.
When recruiters filter through applications, Greenhouse presents a snapshot of the candidates’ documents. This allows a bit more flexibility for job seekers to be creative when it comes to resume formatting choices. However, you need to make sure that the texts are searchable in order for recruiters to find you.
While the system does not assign a match score, it uses keywords frequency to determine search result rankings. If, for example, a recruiter searches for “project management”, a candidate with six mentions of that keyword will appear higher in the search results than someone with only five mentions. So, make sure to mention important keywords multiple times on your resume to get the highest ranking possible.
4) Jobvite
Jobvite has helped thousands of companies source, hire, and onboard top talents through a marketing-led recruiting approach. The platform enables the talent acquisition teams to market and sell their employer value proposition to candidates. Exelon, Silicon Labs, Trek Bikes, Trustwave, and Ingram Micro are just some of Jobvite’s many customers.
The software uses matching technology to score and rank search results. So, keywords matter. Here are some key points to remember when applying through Jobvite’s ATS.
- A word document format works best with the Jobvite.
- Use non-abbreviated keywords. For example, write Senior Manager on your resume instead of Sr. Manager.
- Jobvite shows the filename of your uploaded resume to recruiters, so make sure it’s professional.
- The software recognizes variations, plurals, and different tenses of skills and keywords.
5) Oracle Taleo
Oracle Taleo provides a complete set of tools for sourcing, onboarding, and recruiting. It is one of the most popular ATS with over 30% market share among Fortune 500 companies. Nike, Starbucks, Nintendo, Tesla, and Nordstrom are just a few among the long list of organizations that use Taleo.
Taleo analyzes the content from the application and compares it to the job description. Then, it scores the application based on keywords and candidates’ answers to job-specific questions. Typically, applicants with a high “Req Rank” are more likely to be considered for an interview. To maximize your application outcome, take note of the following key points.
- Flow charts don’t work well with Taleo.
- The software does not recognize different tenses, abbreviations, or acronyms of skills and keywords. Mirror whatever is on a job description.
- Taleo shows the name of your uploaded resume to recruiters. So, make sure to use a professional filename.
6) Lever
Lever is a talent acquisition suite that offers a complete applicant tracking system (ATS) and robust candidate relationship management (CRM) platform in a single solution. It has generated over one million hired opportunities for over 4,000 companies worldwide. Some of them include KPMG, Netflix, Mercedes-Benz, Deloitte, and Sendoso.
Although Lever doesn’t score applications, you still need to include important keywords to ensure you will be found when recruiters search for relevant candidates. The lever’s search algorithm allows for keyword flexibility as it recognizes keyword variations, plurals, and tenses. So, candidates don’t need to spend as much time refining content to match exact keywords on the job description. Keep your formatting simple and avoid columns or tables to make sure your resume is easy to read and searchable.
7) Workday
Workday is a leading provider of enterprise cloud applications for finance, HR, and planning. It delivers financial management, human capital management, and analytics applications designed for the world’s largest companies, educational institutions, and government agencies. AstraZeneca, Adventist Healthcare, Carmax, Oriental, and Jackson Family Wines are some of the company’s customers.
Unlike other ATS, Workday does not score applications. However, it allows recruiters to filter relevant candidates based on the criteria entered in the search field. So, make sure your resume contains all the important keywords.
The application does not distinguish different tenses, abbreviations, or acronyms of keywords. For this reason, it is essential to tailor your resume keywords to be an exact match to what is found in the job description. We suggest adding variations of terms throughout your resume to account for recruiter searches.
8) Bullhorn
Bullhorn has been serving the staffing industry through its easy-to-use ATS and CRM for over 20 years. The company’s cloud-based platform is used by over 10,000 companies across 150 countries. These companies include Arch Staffing & Consulting, HCS Healthcare, Huffmaster, The Consensus Group, and DNA Recruit.
The platform has a job match feature that automatically scores all candidates who apply for a job. A score of 0 to 100 is awarded to each applicant based on their must-have attributes. Then, the recruiter is presented with a list of qualified candidates. Generally, the highest-scoring candidates come first on the list. So, make sure to list all the important attributes from the job description. Additionally, avoid abbreviating your credentials to ensure they don’t get missed during a search.
9) SAP SuccessFactors
SAP SuccessFactors is the global provider of cloud-based Human Experience Management (HXM) software. It supports organizations of all sizes across more than 60 industries in over 200 countries. Moderna, Sephora, and Toyota are some of the most valued brands in the world that use SAP SuccessFactors as their ATS.
Each application is scored based on keywords and the candidates’ answers to pre-screening questions. Candidates with a high score are considered a good match and are more likely to appear higher on the search results list. SAP SuccessFactors recognizes keyword variations, providing candidates more flexibility.
10) Workable
Workable is a leading global hiring platform that aims to make the right hires more efficient. It has helped over 20,000 companies hire 1.2 million employees. Some of the organizations that use Workable are Cytora, Salad and Go, Alexander Dennis, Frosch, and Lethbridge School District. This software extracts key components of a resume like contact details, credentials, skills, and work experience. Then, it analyzes the extracted text to search for keywords that it would expect to find in a resume. Workable has provided basic rules to ensure the texts on your document can be extracted and read properly. Here are some of them.
- Submit your resume in Word format.
- Avoid using headers and footers, as they often get interspersed with the main body of text.
- Use one standard font throughout the CV.
- Don’t use tables and columns as the ordering of sentences may not be what you expect.
- Stick to a chronological resume format, not a functional one.
- Use industry-standard job titles and resume sections.
11) VidCruiter
Trusted by over 40,000 recruiters, VidCruiter empowers employers and job applicants to help them find the perfect fit. It boosts recruiting efforts with data-driven results and seamless automation to engage, manage and hire candidates. United Nations, Samsung, Lowe’s, Bears, and Lionsgate are some of the organizations that trust VidCruiter as their HR tech software.
To help recruiters in pre-screening candidates, the platform offers a resume parsing feature. This enables the hiring team to search through resumes for specific keywords. Hence, including relevant keywords is critical in increasing your application’s chances of getting found. Companies that use VidCruiter may also conduct online competency testing as part of their pre-screening process.
Like any other software, ATS has limitations and were programmed for users to follow standards. So, keeping both ATS and human decision-makers in mind when writing your resume is imperative. The list of ATS outlined in this article should provide you with a better understanding of the systems requirements and how they work, enabling you to create the best ATS-friendly resume possible.
