1. ATS…AND YOUR CLIENTS’ SUCCESS Joan Murrin Director, Dual Career Network University of Iowa 2012 International Higher Education Dual Career Network (HEDCN) Conference

2. ATS Stands for…… Automated Tracking System But is often referred to as “Applicant Tracking System”

3. AUTOMATED TRACKING SYSTEMS  Definition: “The original ATS was designed as a workflow and document management system for resumes… Over time these systems became easier to use in the filtering, management, and analysis of candidates.” Josh Bersin, Bersin & Associates, 2011

4. AUTOMATED TRACKING SYSTEMS  We have emerged from simply COLLECTING resumes in a database (simple process management) to PARSING key words, ANALYZING resume contents, and RANKING applicants by generated scores (complex analytics).  Originally created to handle sheer volume of applicants.  There is approximately 82% market saturation of these systems today.

5. AUTOMATED TRACKING SYSTEMS What does ATS do to the odds of our clients being hired?  Remember, ATS designed for HR efficiency and not necessarily to find the perfect candidate. and…  ATS is error-prone.

6. AUTOMATED TRACKING SYSTEMS which means…  Hiring authority doesn’t need to look at all submitted resumes anymore.  Poorly written resumes/CV’s or those with fewer relevant key words get sorted to the bottom of the list. Help your clients understand their competition!

7. AUTOMATED TRACKING SYSTEMS Examples of ATS currently used: LinkedIn Softscape Oracle Authoria Peopleclick HRSmart Hirebridge Kenexa and more…. PeopleSoft Careerbuilder Yahoo! hot jobs The Ladders Indeed SuccessFactors Monster

8. AUTOMATED TRACKING SYSTEMS How to optimize your clients’ odds: 1. Write document in Microsoft Word. No pdf’s or.docx. 2. No headers or footers or page numbers. 3. No graphics or symbols of any kind. 4. No tables or fields. 5. No fancy formatting or resume/CV templates. Use common fonts such as Times New Roman or Courier. 6. Select one size of font; no bold or italics. No all caps. 7. Be consistent in the way you enter your information.

9. AUTOMATED TRACKING SYSTEMS 8. Contact information comes first. No PO Boxes. 9. Do not combine different data under one section heading. 10. Always end company name in Inc., Co., LLC, etc. Includes dates of employment. 11. Separate each work entry by a blank space. 12. Place skills under periods of work experience to support the system efforts to calculate experience in a particular concept. 13. List each position in the same company as a stand-alone entry. Thanks to Lisa Parker Parker-CPRW, Southern Georgia

10. AUTOMATED TRACKING SYSTEMS And the challenge for us is to……. Help our clients write a customized ATS-format resume for each job they apply for when appropriate. Utilize specific language in a job description to include in a customized ATS-ready resume. Client also needs to have a “pretty” resume/CV to hand out as a hard copy.

11. AUTOMATED TRACKING SYSTEMS NOW WE’LL LOOK AT SOME HARD COPY EXAMPLES…… For further information, Contact Joan Murrin joan-murrin@uiowa.edu 319.335.3791