Getting Your Job Application Through Screening Systems

by Mansal Denton in Work | 110 Shares

With such a poor job market, it is important to pay particular attention to your job application. Many companies use application tracking software that act as screening systems. However, if you know what these systems are looking for, you can go a long way to help yourself get the job you have been looking for.

1. Don’t place contact info in the header of your application – many software programs are set to ignore this information so it often gets deleted completely
2. Do not create borders
3. Keep 1-inch margins at the top and bottom
4. Choose conservative fonts – try to find Verdana, Arial, or Calibri in order to write the application as Times New Roman can be rejected by the software
5. Smallest font size should be 11-point font
6. Do not format using tables

If you follow these rules, you can avoid hiccups at the beginning of the process that could cost you the job.

A Trick to Get Your Resume Past Applicant Tracking Systems [jobs.aol.com]

Featured photo credit: Business - young man sitting in job Interview via Shutterstock

Mansal D loves meditation, cooking, swimming, mixed martial arts, reading and writing on his self actualization blog The Hacked Mind. His day job revolves around ecommerce for Battery Lord, but that is boring stuff.

0 Responses to “Getting Your Job Application Through Screening Systems”

Amanda Woods says:

March 14, 2013 at 3:07 am

1. A resume and an application are not the same thing and should not be referred to interchangeably.
2. Likewise, the correct term – applicant tracking system (ATS) – is not the same as "application tracking software", as you have substituted. Please verify your use of terminology.
3. If you are going to paraphrase someone else's work, please make the attempt to do so correctly and cite your source. Incidentally, they did a much better job of this than you did. http://jobs.aol.com/articles/2013/02/26/resume-tricks-applicant-tracking-systems/