From day one, we've been talking about why it's so important to tailor your resume for you to be successful in a job search.
More explicitly, that your resume needs to respond to specific job position's requirements and clearly communicate why you're a suitable candidate – because it's not only essential to pass through an Applicant Tracking System filter but also necessary to have a higher chance of recruiter inviting you for an interview.
But easier said than done, right? When you have to tailor your resume for multiple job openings, it can become seriously frustrating. We felt your pain, so a few years ago, we launched an AI-driven service called Resume ATS Optimization to assist you with the whole process. This offering enabled easier resume tailoring and optimization for Applicant Tracking Systems by instantly comparing job descriptions and resume content, highlighting what specific key information your resume is missing.
However, it wasn't perfect straight from the bat. We primarily focused on the tech industry, so the service struggled with job postings from other fields. In addition, it lacked accuracy in highlighting the key information, was focused not on matching the job requirements but rather keywords, and was too difficult to grasp for non-tech-savvy people.
We knew that we had to improve many critical aspects of the service to make it better for all our members. So, we stepped up, and for the last year, have been developing what we believe turned out to be one of the most significant updates in Wozber history yet. It's finally finished, and we're launching it today! We're super excited to introduce you to our completely reimagined Resume ATS Optimization!
What's changed? In essence, we've touched every single piece of the service and made it easier to use, more accurate, and extra focused on job requirements. It's a giant leap forward in making resume tailoring and ATS optimization approachable for every job seeker.
And now, without any further delay, let's jump straight into what awaits you!
A Better Way to Tailor Your Resume
Here's our new Resume ATS Optimization in action:
Quite a spectacle, right? That's how simple it is to analyze any job opening and just in a few seconds determine how well your resume matches its job requirements.
Wozber Resume ATS Optimization opens many new possibilities and brings more transparency into the recruitment decision-making. From now on, you will know your chances of landing a job interview in much more detail before sending off a resume. Yet, most importantly, now you will have a clear path to increasing those chances by tailoring your resume to your chosen job position's requirements. We see it as a real game-changer.
So, what steps will you need to take to optimize/tailor your resume?
- Analyze job requirements
Find a job opening you're interested in, copy its job requirements into the optimization entry form, and click "Analyze".
- Find out what needs to be tailored
After a few moments, receive the overview of what key information the employer requires, how well your resume matches the job requirements, and what specific resume sections you should tailor more. Essentially, this step will reveal how ATS sees your resume.
- Tailor your resume
Customize your resume content with highlighted keywords until you match most job requirements and reach the recommended optimization rate.
That's the basics you need to know to jump in and start using Resume ATS Optimization right away.
However, if you're feeling more curious, stay with us, and let's explore every step in more detail.
1st Step: Analyze Job Requirements
The entry point into resume tailoring is the ATS Optimization Home. Here you can add new job requirements to start a new optimization or manage any previously analyzed job openings.
Where to find new job requirements, you might ask? You can use any job posting online for that. For example, maybe a company that interests you lists available job openings on its website, or perhaps there is an exciting job opportunity posted on your local job search platform.
Once you have a job posting at hand, copy its information into the form and click "Analyze".
What happens next is done entirely automagically:
- Wozber will process provided text and identify job requirements.
- If there is any irrelevant content, like details about company or position benefits, that data will be ignored (for now, in English only).
- Next, the key information in every job requirement will be typed and highlighted as keywords.
- Then Wozber will go through each job requirement again and, based on what kind of keywords it entails, put it into the most relevant category linked directly to a specific resume section.
- Once the job requirements are thoroughly analyzed, Wozber will start examining your resume and compare what you have already written with the keywords found in the job requirements.
- Finally, your ATS Optimization Rate will be calculated based on how well your resume matches each job requirement, their category, and job criteria in general.
That's a lot for just one single click, huh?
Compared to the earlier versions of ATS Optimization, we completely rebuilt underlying logic and more deeply integrated machine learning techniques. We leveraged hundreds of thousands of different job requirements to make our system smart enough to process the majority of job openings out there. What we've built here can save you a massive amount of time in examining each job opportunity.
All right, we got a little bit techy here for a moment. Let's get back to resume tailoring. So, in this step, you have copied job requirements, clicked "Analyze", and Wozber has done its magic. What happens next?
2nd Step: Find Out What Needs to Be Tailored
After analyzing job requirements, you will get the result page we call the ATS Optimization Overview. It's the summary of how well your resume matches analyzed job criteria, and it also can be seen as a to-do list, indicating resume sections that need more tailoring.
Here's how it looks:
Looking from top to bottom, ATS Optimization Overview mainly consists of the following parts:
- Your ATS Optimization Rate
It's an indicator showing how well your resume matches the job requirements in general and by individual categories. Wozber calculates it based on the common practices used by Applicant Tracking Systems by comparing the key information from the job requirements with the content found in a resume. What we do differently is trying to capture more different aspects of a resume to evaluate your progress more accurately. It's also being updated in real-time whenever you make changes to your resume. Yet, the most important thing you should take from all of this is that the higher your optimization rate is, the higher job interview chances you will have.
- Analyzed Job Requirements
By scrolling down through the ATS Optimization Overview, you will find analyzed job requirements placed into six categories directly linked to the resume sections: Personal Details, Experience, Education, Skills, Languages, and Certificates. Your goal is to match the job requirements with the content in the corresponding resume sections. You will know the match status for each requirement, so it will be easy to track your progress.
- Highlighted and Typed Keywords
Every job requirement has the highlighted and typed keywords that are the building blocks for your resume. Whenever you use a keyword in an associated resume section, its status will change from grey to green, indicating that you matched it. When you use all the highlighted keywords in a job requirement, its status will change too to signal a full requirement match. Simple as that! There are multiple types of keywords: Job Title, Location, Action, Phrase, People, Education Degree, Education Field, Hard Skills, Soft Skills, Languages, and Certificates. As you can see, the majority of them are rather self-explanatory, but in the next chapter, we will discuss keyword usage in more detail.
So, here you have it – a clear summary of your resume relevance from an ATS/recruiter point of view. The ATS Optimization Overview is a great way to determine what your resume lacks and what parts you should tailor more to have better chances of landing a job interview. The only question left is how to do the tailoring itself. Let's find out about that next.
3rd Step: Tailor Your Resume
After you initiated the Job Requirement Analysis and got the ATS Optimization Overview, the only thing left for you is to go through each resume section that has not yet matched the associated job requirements.
For that, we have deeply integrated ATS Optimization into Wozber Resume Builder that you can use entirely for free. We try to leverage our services to the fullest to reduce any friction that may arise otherwise.
Resume tailoring requires your input to make it possible, but the process is smooth and clear. That's reassured by Wozber Virtual Assistant, which guides you with helpful information about writing each resume section. And once it lays down the basics, it starts showing the job requirements that are most relevant for the resume section you're editing.
This is how Wozber Virtual Assistant (visible on the right side in the video) will help you out:
Whenever you're editing a resume section that has associated job requirements, Wozber Virtual Assistant will conveniently show you them with the relevant highlighted keywords.
So, let's say you haven't matched the skills job requirements. Then, when you open the editor for resume skills section, Wozber will recommend matching the job requirements with highlighted hard and soft skills:
In the same way, you will find all the relevant job requirements in each different resume section.
Once you use a highlighted keyword, its status will change from grey to green, indicating that it was found in your resume and will cause your ATS Optimization Rate to increase. Such interactions will make it very easy for you to track your progress down the road.
Keywords essentially are the building blocks for your resume that you use to write your resume and match the job requirements. Even though they play a key part in resume tailoring, remember that you're writing your resume for recruiters first and Applicant Tracking Systems second. For that, don't blindly use keywords without a thought all over the place, but rather try communicating your expertise in the words that an employer has chosen. Your goal is to make it clear that you match the job position's criteria. By doing this, you will tailor your resume for both humans and machines.
There are multiple types of keywords with direct input fields for your resume: Job Title, Location, Education Degree, Education Field, Hard Skills, Soft Skills, Languages, and Certificates. These are the easiest ones to use since they only require to be filled as single input field values:
However, some keywords may require a little bit more effort on your part – those are the keywords highlighted in the experience job requirements. It's not a coincidence because writing the experience section is usually more challenging than other resume sections. After all, you have much more freedom to describe your relevant accomplishments, which may require more consideration.
But don't worry, you will be in good hands. To help you tailor your experience bullet points, Wozber Virtual Assistant will provide suggestions and tips on structuring them the most proper way. Also, to write your accomplishments based on analyzed job requirements, Wozber will highlight the following keywords:
- Actions, indicating processes and activities described in a job requirement.
- Phrases, describing general key information that should be mentioned in an accomplishment.
- People, encapsulating any human communication you will have, like working with managers, teams, or clients.
Once you try writing accomplishments, you will notice how much easier it is to build sentences when you have the required words in front of you – add some actions to a few phrases, and you're good to go.
To enable more ways to match job requirements, Wozber checks not only for exact keyword values but for inflections too. So, for example, if a keyword includes the text "Manage", you will be able to use Manage/Managed/Managing in your resume without a problem and match that keyword.
Also, Wozber evaluates if keywords from the experience requirements have been used in pairs to encourage including key information in a similar context that requirements are written. We call this solution Context Matching, and we believe it will help you write accomplishment statements that better reflect the job criteria.
Once a context is matched, you will see keywords connecting by their sides:
And for now, that's all with resume tailoring!
We laid down many details here, but we promise that all pieces will find their place much better when you start using ATS Optimization on your own. We worked really hard to make the process as frictionless as possible – and it doesn't matter if you are writing your resume from scratch or just looking to optimize your already written content.
Once you use ATS Optimization to tailor your resume and reach the recommended ATS Optimization Rate, you will have much better chances of landing a job interview.
So, from now on, apply for any job at any company with confidence!
A Quick Comment about Accuracy and Language Support
Currently, ATS Optimization works only for job postings in English (highest accuracy), German, and Lithuanian.
Even though we've immensely increased the accuracy of identifying the job requirements and keyword types compared to earlier ATS Optimization versions, it's not perfect yet. There might be some edge cases where the service highlights the keywords incorrectly, but as Wozber analyzes more and more job requirements, the system will keep getting more accurate.
We are constantly updating our machine learning models to reflect the newest data, so by analyzing job requirements with ATS Optimization, you will play a key role in helping us make it even better!
What's Next?
Despite the fact that we've just brought massive improvements with the latest ATS Optimization, the sky is the limit when it comes to Wozber.
We're in a constant search for new ways to boost your productivity and job interview chances, and many exciting things are already in development that we can't wait to deliver to you! Stay tuned!
Wrapping Up
The ATS Optimization can do wonders for your resume and job search performance.
Our highest hopes now are for you to handle resume tailoring like a pro ;) We expect you will have a much easier time adjusting your resume for more exciting job openings and will have better chances of landing that one job you desire most.
What's left now is to jump in and try out the new ATS Optimization for yourself!
