I was recently laid off from a company I had worked at for almost four years. It came completely out of nowhere. I had a good relationship with my manager, there were no warning signs, and even HR seemed genuinely upset while telling me.
We had recently hired someone new, and I had started training them, so my guess is that it was a budget cut. I’m trying not to overthink it, but realistically I probably will for a while. Still, I need to move forward and start applying again.
Before sending out my resume, I’ve been reading a lot of Reddit posts about the current job market, and I keep seeing ATS mentioned everywhere. It seems like many companies use software to filter resumes before a human ever sees them. Yesterday I even saw someone share a table with almost ten different ATS tools/brands, which surprised me.
Some people say you basically can’t get noticed without an ATS-friendly resume. Others say it’s overblown or that these systems are costly and not always used that way.
My thinking is: if larger companies are getting hundreds or thousands of applications, why wouldn’t they use some kind of filtering system? And if I can make my resume easier for those systems to read, why risk not doing it?
I’m about to start a serious job search, and if an ATS-friendly resume can help me get noticed in 50 applications instead of sending out 800 with no response, I’d rather prepare properly before I begin.
For those of you who have been applying recently, did making your resume ATS-friendly actually help? And for recruiters or hiring managers, how much does ATS really matter?