Episode Transcript

Chris Villanueva 0:00
Let’s say high level or the more strategic work experiences that can speak to your future director position out there.

Chris Villanueva 0:13
And welcome to the Let’s Eat, Grandma Career Warrior Podcast where our goal is not only to help you land your dream job, but to help you live your best life. My name is Chris Villanueva and I founded the Let’s Eat, Grandma resume service in 2014 with my brother. We’ve been focused on helping job seekers to move forward in their careers, so feel free to check out letseatgrandma.com if you are looking for a professional resume writing service.

Chris Villanueva 0:38
I have to give a special shout out to our audio editor AJ Aligonero. Our AJ has been with us for the last 200 episodes, it’s been helping me tremendously to move forward with my own workflow in my own life. So AJ, you’ve made a huge difference in my life. Thank you for making the show what it is today.

Chris Villanueva 0:59
So today we’re going to talk about ATS friendliness. This is one of the most commonly asked questions in our intake questionnaire, how do I get my resume ATS friendly? Is it going to pass the ATS? Is it going to beat the bots stuff like that will get all the time? And so I wanted to set things straight with this episode, what are some of the things that can get your resume in tip top shape so that it’s even noticed by a hiring manager, I know that folks are anxious about this. So I will just simplify the things that you can do to make sure your resume gets quote past the ATS.

Chris Villanueva 1:34
Now, quick note, ATS stands for applicant tracking system it is basically just software there are dozens and dozens of different types of applicant tracking systems things like bullhorn Taleo. Even if you want to look at websites like linkedin.com, there are ways to use keywords to search and organize candidates. And it’s not as complicated as you would think an ATS is, are not as smart as you would think either. So we want to make sure that we have an ATS friendly resume that let’s let’s just put it this way. It’s not too fancy doesn’t have all those crazy bells and whistles. It doesn’t have a picture of you and your grandmother’s smiling with a AI hat. I don’t know whatever. I’m making stuff up at this point. But you want to make sure you have a clean traditional design that’s focused on the right types of keywords. So let’s go into that.

Chris Villanueva 2:23
The first rule that I will give you in your checklist for an ATS friendly resume is to go single column saying go single column as a specific call out and opening it up first, because I know how many resumes I’ve seen this year that are double column. Guys, not only does this not pass my ATS rule, it’s not going to work for many systems out there. But it just doesn’t look as good as you think it does. So go single column and your resume. So it’s just one single, horizontal or vertical, I should say, with your different sections here. So starting at the top, there’s summary then your professional experiences, if that’s where you’re gonna go next, and et cetera, et cetera, go single column, and that is ATS friendly practice.

Chris Villanueva 3:12
Now, the second thing to do is remove any tables, charts and icons from your resume. So tables, charts and icons, these are, how do I put it? How do I put it this way, they’re not making your resume look as pretty as you think they are. A lot of folks are including these things just to add some differentiation. At the end of the day. Not only does it add to the clutter in your resume, but it takes away from the focus in the qualifications that hiring managers need to see. And again, the algorithm is not going to be able to pick up on these things as much if they are getting in the way of men, ATS Gantt. So remove, again tables, charts or icons, those visual obstructions that may get in the way of an ATS scan.

Chris Villanueva 3:59
The third thing to look out for this is the third thing on our ATS friendly checklist today is label your headers clearly you want to make sure you label each header for the sections in your resume. So an example of that is professional experience. Another example of that is skills or education. So these are headers that have to be laid out clearly for the ATS to pick up on. Now. I’ve seen a lot of different resumes with a lot of different ways of wording these things I’ve seen, you know, core competency and skills section I’ve seen work like experience I’ve seen education slash certifications, slash skills. All of these last examples are ways that you can confuse the applicant tracking system. So go with your tried and true traditional way of naming your headers. The only exception I will make to that and I’ve put a lot of thought into this is your summary Section, I believe you can swap out the words summary or profile statement with a headline or a key word oriented statement, because I think the good outweighs the bad in that context there. But otherwise, make sure that you not only are labeling your headers in a traditional manner, but you’re also making sure to use the correct formatting tools consistently. For all of those headers.

Chris Villanueva 5:22
The next thing in our ATS friendly checklist today is use a word doc, submit your resume in a Microsoft Word, Doc, if it can, sometimes there will be a specific call out to the PDF, shout out to my good friend PDF, I hope you’re doing good out there doing nice and well. But the Microsoft Word is going to be your safe bet for something that is ATS friendly. So a PDF at the end of the day is just a picture and it preserves your format and you’re designed, which is great. But there’s always the chance that it may not get read or scanned is properly as a Microsoft Word document, which is kind of just like code with all of those key words and skills implanted within them. So upload is a Word doc, if you can not like dot, I don’t know what the 1997 version of it is. But whatever the recent Microsoft Word format is.

Chris Villanueva 6:19
Alright, the last part of this episode, it’s going to be focusing on key words. So it gave you kind of the quick checklist that has to do with design related things. And I apologize if I just named every possible thing that your resume had. My goal is really to help you to get noticed here. So I’m listing out the things that I know that help. And the thing that I know, that takes a lot more time and effort, but it is so worth it at the end of the day is a keywords targeted approach when it comes to the job posting.

Chris Villanueva 6:53
So these applicant tracking systems at the end of the day are looking for a set of keywords that are going to be able to create a match between you and the search. So this can look like a bunch of different things, there are an infinite amount of combinations of ways that the hiring manager can search for you. And there’s an infinite amount of ways that you can lay out your keywords in a resume. So don’t get too bogged down in, you know, I need, you know, a million different keywords just to get noticed, I want you to just get focused on those specific position titles, and those specific nouns common to that position that are going to be effective when you’re sending this out online.

Chris Villanueva 7:39
So focus on position titles, that’s a very overlooked principle that folks when creating the resumes they forget to do. For example, if you have someone who’s applying for a director position, and they’re not including the words director anywhere on the resume, I don’t care if they haven’t had the position before that works against you. So make sure to focus on position title, and try to include that wherever you can in the resume, whether it’s like a headline statement, heck, even if it is the file name of your document, you want to find any way to ethically Of course, get position title, get the appropriate targeted position title on your resume, try to do this try to shoot for at least three times I can’t speak to every ATS out there, but I get the hunch. And the good strong feeling is that frequency does matter.

Chris Villanueva 8:31
Some when it comes to the actual keywords you’re including. So position title is important. But also don’t forget the nouns common to the position, I say hard skills, I like to focus on those. And when it comes to the ATS, I’m not going to knock down our good friend soft skills because those are those that’s where it’s that soft skills are where it’s at. But the hard skills are truly going to be the ones that hiring managers are typing into their, their systems to search for. So again, I always use these coding examples. But it’s I’m in Austin, I have this Austin background behind me because I’m in Austin today. But our friendly software developers out there here in Austin have to make sure that they have things like JavaScript, you know, those different programming languages that are going to be important and don’t just include every single one, but focus on those five to 10 most important ones that have to be dispersed evenly throughout the resume.

Chris Villanueva 9:27
You can’t just throw it in a skill section. But you should also make sure that you can prove your JavaScript experience through including it as a nice bullet point and a professional experience section or even including it in the summary at the top if it’s absolutely critical.

Chris Villanueva 9:42
So shoot for I would say like those, again, five to 10 nouns common to the position that doesn’t mean you can’t include more, but focus on the ones that you know, job postings are really going to be repeating throughout the job search experience here. So you’ll notice that theme is one thing that I’ll tell you, when you’re looking at different job postings. As you apply for different positions, I tried to hone in and repeat the ones that really matter.

Chris Villanueva 10:09
Now, if you are applying for, say three different types of positions, or two different types of positions, you have to make sure that you have two or three different versions of your resume. Don’t go crazy, you don’t want to overhaul your resume to where you look like a completely different person. But you may find yourself focusing in on certain keywords more and more for one different version of your resume versus another.

Chris Villanueva 10:34
So for example, if you are looking to stretch in your career, you’ve been a project manager for some time, and you’re looking for a Director of Operations position, say you still are applying for project manager positions, but you also want to stretch and apply for those director level positions. We’ll have that stretch version of your resume that can include that director keyword, and that can include the more, let’s say, high level, or the more strategic work experiences that can speak to your future director position out there. So get targeted, and make sure you have sets of keywords for each version of your resume.

Chris Villanueva 11:16
Alright, so that is my ATS checklist. There are so many other things that I could have focused in on, you know, people like to kind of write about fonts and like what is the best font for the ATS, I don’t want to overwhelm you with all of like those little things that probably won’t matter too much, you’re probably already doing just fine. But focus on these specific things in this checklist, I think it can make a big difference for you. As you were looking to get noticed in the hiring landscape out there. I know it’s competitive. I know that last year was really tough 2023. And this year is looking better, I would give a shout out to our 2024 year but I know it’s not the same as it was in 2020 to 2021 when there was more of a job seekers landscape out there. So keep your head up, keep moving forward.

Chris Villanueva 12:05
Don’t just apply online, just use it as one part of your job search strategy. And you have me and your thoughts and prayers always friend as you move forward and continue to send out applications. So I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Career Warrior Oodcast.

Chris Villanueva 12:22
Hey, we’re on YouTube. Now we’re looking to get a little bit more of a visual experience for our job seekers. So make sure you’re subscribed on our YouTube channel: Let’s Eat, Grandma. And I hope that you can also leave us a rating if you’re listening on Apple or Spotify. Thank you so much for tuning into today’s episode and I will see you soon on the next Career Warrior Podcast!

Chris Villanueva 12:42
And before you go remember, if you’re not seeing the results you want in your job search our highly trained team of professional resume writers here at Let’s Eat, Grandma can help head on over to letseatgrandma.com/podcast to get a free resume critique and $70 off any one of our resume writing packages.

Chris Villanueva 12:42
We talk all the time on the show about the importance of being targeted in your job search and with our unique writing process and focus on individual attention. You’ll get a resume cover letter and LinkedIn profile that are highly customized and tailored to your goals to help you get hired faster.

Chris Villanueva 13:17
Again, head on over to letseatgrandma.com/podcast. Thanks I’ll see you next time.