Found a shortcut in ATS keywords that got me past 3 rejections

I applied to 12 jobs in Denver last month and got nothing back. Turns out most applicant tracking systems score your resume based on exact keyword matches from the job description. I copied the 'required' section from a software engineering posting and sprinkled those exact terms into my skills section. Submitted 4 more apps and got 2 callbacks. Anyone else game the system like this?

2 comments

2 Comments

carter.julia13d ago

Oh man, that's clever! (I tried something similar but I accidentally copy-pasted the entire job ad into my resume formatting once and it looked like a total mess, haha). I swear these ATS systems are just looking for any excuse to bin you.

kevin_sullivan12d ago

I read somewhere that some companies actually use the same ATS to scan for certain keywords and if you don't hit enough, you're basically invisible lol.