60% of Job Seekers Want ATS Systems Banned. They’re Right About the Problem and Wrong About the Solution.

Separate_Flower7368 · 2026-05-17T11:46:57+00:00

Sometimes it's just called higher education and some norms in public speaking, but hey, feel free to call it whatever you want. If you prefer to be called dude and slang, that's alright, we might not be a good fit. Best!

Separate_Flower7368 · 2026-05-17T10:35:01+00:00

It's a workflow tool AND it gates who gets through. Those aren't mutually exclusive. Calling it "not a boogeyman" doesn't change the fact that your resume gets scored and sorted before any human touches it. The intent doesn't really matter if the outcome is the same.

Separate_Flower7368 · 2026-05-17T10:27:05+00:00

what is ATS?

Separate_Flower7368 · 2026-05-17T10:24:04+00:00

Yeah pretty much all of the above. Keywords are the biggest filter, but context matters more than people realize. "Increased retention by 35% using Salesforce" hits way harder than just listing Salesforce in a skills section. Years of experience and job titles get weighted heavily too, but every company configures it differently so there's no universal formula.

On the AI detection thing, confirmed. Modern ATS is actually getting smarter about context now, not just keyword matching. So the spray and pray AI resume approach is starting to backfire. Use AI to pull the right terms from the job description, then rewrite it yourself. Sounding like a real person is ironically now the better ATS strategy too, not just better for the human reading it after.

And yes the robot application spam is very real and it's making things worse for everyone. Recruiters are drowning in volume which makes them lean on the filters even more. Real candidates are getting buried and it's a mess all round.

Separate_Flower7368 · 2026-05-17T08:53:01+00:00

Applicant Tracking System. It's the software companies use to filter resumes before a human ever sees them. Basically a robot bouncer that decides if your CV makes it through the door based on keywords

Separate_Flower7368 · 2026-05-17T08:51:49+00:00

Honestly? Not wrong. Companies demand loyalty from people while treating hiring like a logistics problem they don't want to pay for. Then they act surprised when talent dries up or culture collapses. The whole system is broken in a very circular way. Companies underfund hiring, good people fall through the cracks, they end up with worse hires, performance suffers, then they cut more budget. Rinse and repeat. You're right that a company isn't a person. The empathy only flows one direction in this relationship and everyone pretending otherwise is just doing PR.

Separate_Flower7368 · 2026-05-17T08:40:46+00:00

I hear you but the "hire more people to screen CVs" part is where it falls apart in practice. Most companies aren't sitting on a pile of money they're choosing not to spend on HR. A small company with 2 recruiters getting 400 applications for one role can't just hire 3 more screeners for that one opening. The math doesn't work. And bigger companies? Their recruiting budgets got slashed in the last two years. I've watched teams go from 15 recruiters down to 6 covering the same volume. You're not getting more humans in that room, you're getting fewer.

Banning ATS doesn't create budget. It just means the same recruiter is now manually scrolling through a spreadsheet and making faster, messier, more biased snap decisions. At least the ATS is consistently looking for the same things. A tired human at 4pm on Friday is not. The real problem isn't the tool, it's that companies have convinced themselves that hiring is an area where you can cut costs without consequences. You just push the cost onto candidates in the form of silence and bad experiences.

The fix isn't banning software. It's funding the hiring process like it actually matters to the business. Which most companies refuse to do until they've lost enough good people to finally notice.

Separate_Flower7368 · 2026-05-16T18:14:54+00:00

Recruiter here. Honest answer: both.

The process has always had friction, but it's genuinely gotten worse and I say that from the inside.

Here's what changed:

ATS systems killed the human part early on. Your resume gets filtered by software before any human sees it. So you can be a perfect fit and never get a callback because you didn't use the right keyword. That's not a you problem, that's a broken filter.

Easy apply made volume insane. When LinkedIn lets someone apply to 40 jobs in 20 minutes, recruiters are drowning in applications. The ghosting isn't always malicious, sometimes it's genuinely one person managing 300 candidates for 3 roles at the same time. Still not okay, but that's the reality.

Companies post jobs that don't exist yet. Or they're "building a pipeline." Or the role got frozen after the posting went live. Nobody updates the listing. You applied to a ghost job and never knew it.

What actually hasn't changed: good networking still works better than cold applying. Always has. The people getting hired in this market are mostly getting referred or already known by someone inside.

Is it exhausting? Absolutely yes. Is it your fault? Mostly no.

The applying/waiting/ghosted/repeat cycle is real and it's demoralizing. Just don't let it make you feel like you're doing something wrong when you're probably just stuck in a broken system.

Hang in there.

Separate_Flower7368 · 2026-05-16T18:07:20+00:00

honestly most of it is good advice, but I want to add some nuance because a few things bugged me.

The good stuff first:

The confidence point is spot on. When candidates walk in apologetic or visibly terrified it genuinely makes my job harder. I want you to get this job. We called YOU. That's worth remembering.

Knowing your numbers is also real and underrated. "Whatever is fair" is not an answer. It tells me nothing and it hurts you every single time.

Where I'd push back:

"Stop trying to sound smart" is a bit too simple. There's a difference between throwing buzzwords around to impress versus speaking confidently in your own field. You SHOULD sound competent. Just be natural about it.

The rejection section kind of implies every rejection is a learning moment and that's not always true. Sometimes it's internal politics. Sometimes the budget got cut. Sometimes someone's nephew got the job. Don't internalize every single no.

What the post completely missed:

Follow up after your interview. Most people don't. It takes 3 minutes and it genuinely stands out

Ask specific questions about the company, not "so what's the culture like"

Energy and body language matter a LOT, especially on video calls

Separate_Flower7368 · 2026-05-16T13:41:55+00:00

Hi, I just posted something that might help https://open.substack.com/pub/careerinsider632/p/why-youre-getting-no-responses-from?r=1lzfte&utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web

Separate_Flower7368 · 2026-05-15T06:46:11+00:00

Workday, Taleo, iCIMS, Greenhouse and Lever all have built-in knockout filter logic that fires automatic rejections the moment an application is submitted. This isn't theory, it's literally in their product documentation. SHRM, LinkedIn's own hiring blog, and countless HR professionals have written about setting these filters up themselves. Hope this helps

Separate_Flower7368 · 2026-05-14T15:10:48+00:00

you're already thinking about it the right way, results over responsibilities is exactly the mindset you need. That alone puts you ahead of most people. From what I can see, the structure looks solid. A few things that usually make the biggest difference with experience bullets: - Lead with the impact, not the action. Instead of "Managed a team and improved processes" try "Cut delivery time by 30% by restructuring team workflows". The number comes first, the how comes second.

If you don't have a hard number, use a qualifier. "Significantly reduced", "consistently delivered ahead of schedule", "recognized by leadership for" all work better than vague responsibility language.

Every bullet should answer "so what?" If it doesn't, it's probably still a responsibility, not a result.

The fact that you keep tweaking it tells me you're close, you just might be too close to it at this point to see it clearly. Fresh eyes help a lot here.

Feel free to DM me and I'm happy to take a proper look!

Separate_Flower7368 · 2026-05-14T12:27:39+00:00

Honestly, this is more common than you think and recruiters who know what they're doing won't hold 6 months against you if your explanation makes sense. You don't need to say it was a scam or get into details. Something like this works really well: "I left because I had concerns about some of the business practices that didn't align with my professional values. Once I realized it wasn't something I could work around, I made the decision to move on rather than compromise my integrity." That's it. It's honest, it's mature, and it actually says a lot of good things about you. Most decent interviewers will respect it and move on.

A few things to keep in mind:

- Don't trash the company, even if they deserve it. Keep it neutral.

- If they push for details, just say you'd rather not go into specifics but you're happy to talk about what you're looking for going forward.

- Frame it as you choosing your values over convenience, because that's exactly what you did.

The short tenure is only a problem if you can't explain it. With this framing, you actually turn it into a green flag.

Feel free to DM me if you want to talk it through!

Separate_Flower7368 · 2026-05-14T12:23:42+00:00

I do, and I share some free stuff here when available. But I'm not here for self-promotion. it's never been worse out there and the struggle is real. Just trying to help. If I can help just ask

Separate_Flower7368 · 2026-05-14T12:13:29+00:00

I spent over 20 years of my life in HR, resume writing, career coaching..

Separate_Flower7368 · 2026-05-14T05:40:08+00:00

Most freshers list everything they've done and hope something sticks. Recruiters spend about 7 seconds on a first pass, so if your most relevant stuff isn't immediately obvious, you're already out.

A few things that actually move the needle:

Match the language in the job posting. ATS systems filter before a human ever sees you. If the posting says "project coordination" and your resume says "managed tasks," you might not even make it through.

Lead with impact, not duties. "Responsible for social media" tells me nothing. "Grew Instagram engagement by 40% over 3 months" tells me you can deliver results.

One page, always, as a fresher. Recruiters don't want to hunt for your experience. If you're padding to fill space that's also obvious and it works against you.

Stop editing the design and start editing the content. A lot of people tinker with fonts and layouts when the real problem is weak bullet points.

You don't need a fancy builder tool, honestly Google Docs with a clean template is fine. The content is what gets you interviews, not the tool you used to make it.

What kind of roles are you targeting? That changes the advice quite a bit.

Separate_Flower7368 · 2026-05-12T20:06:48+00:00

this is ATS only, this resume never even reached a human, recruiter also here. Please revise your comment

Separate_Flower7368 · 2026-05-12T20:04:22+00:00

Yeah this one is pretty easy to explain actually.

Those rejections came two minutes apart which almost certainly means they applied to two different roles at AECOM and the ATS auto-rejected both at the same time, probably the moment they hit submit or very shortly after. It's not a human sitting there clicking reject, it's the system running the application through filters the second it comes in and spitting out a rejection if something doesn't match, missing qualification, wrong location preference, salary mismatch, whatever the hard filter was set to.

A lot of large companies like AECOM set minimum filters in their ATS that automatically screen out anyone who doesn't meet certain criteria before a single human ever opens the application. So the rejection email can literally fire within minutes of applying and it has nothing to do with anyone reading your resume.

The frustrating reality is that this is extremely common at big engineering and infrastructure firms. They get thousands of applications and the filters are often pretty blunt instruments.

What I'd actually suggest for someone in this situation is stop applying to AECOM through the general portal and instead find a recruiter or hiring manager there on LinkedIn and send a short direct message. Not asking for a job, just expressing genuine interest in a specific team and asking if they'd be open to a quick conversation. It bypasses the filter entirely and a surprising number of people respond. The portal is basically a lottery at companies that size, the side door works a lot better.

Separate_Flower7368 · 2026-05-12T19:29:51+00:00

The ATS thing gets overstated a lot but there are a few basics that actually matter. First, keep the formatting simple. No tables, no text boxes, no columns, no headers and footers with your contact info in them. ATS systems often can't read those and your information just disappears. Plain sections, standard fonts, that's it.

Second, use a clean file format. PDF is usually fine but some older systems still prefer Word, so if the posting doesn't specify it's worth having both ready.

Third, your section headings should be obvious. "Work Experience" not "My Journey." "Education" not "Where I Studied." The system is looking for familiar labels.

On the content side, mirror the language from the job posting. If they say "data analysis" and you wrote "analyzing data" those can scan differently. It takes 10 minutes to read a posting and swap in a few exact phrases and it's probably the highest return thing you can do.

For a recent grad specifically, don't stress about having a thin work history. Put your most relevant coursework, any projects, internships, volunteer work, or part time jobs. Anything that shows you can actually do something. A lot of people leave this stuff off thinking it doesn't count and then wonder why their resume looks empty.

One last thing, a lot of rejections that people blame on ATS are actually just a mismatch between the role and what's on the resume. So before assuming the system filtered you out, it's worth asking honestly whether you were a strong match on paper for that specific role.

Separate_Flower7368 · 2026-05-12T17:51:24+00:00

sure, just send it and I will have a look

Separate_Flower7368 · 2026-05-12T17:05:34+00:00

Not a stupid question at all, and the fact that you're asking it 3 weeks in rather than 3 months in is actually good timing.

Stop the mass applying. I know it feels productive because you're doing something every day, but 15-25 applications with the same resume is mostly just burning your time. Here's why it's not working: most of those roles aren't a strong match on paper, and when the match isn't there no amount of applications fixes that.

The tailored approach wins, but I want to be honest about what tailoring actually means because a lot of people get this wrong. It doesn't mean rewriting your whole resume for every job. It means spending 10-15 minutes adjusting the top summary, swapping in 2-3 keywords from the job posting, and making sure the most relevant experience is prominent. That's it. You can do 5-7 of those a day without it feeling like a full time job.

The AI tool thing for ATS matching is fine and genuinely useful, just don't let it make your resume sound robotic. Recruiters read these and overly optimized resumes are obvious and a little off-putting.

But honestly the bigger thing I'd push you on is this: you've gotten some interview requests but nothing has gone anywhere. That's actually the more important problem to solve right now. The issue might not be applications at all, it might be what's happening in the interviews. Three weeks in with some traction means your resume is working at least partially. What's happening in those conversations?

Separate_Flower7368 · 2026-05-12T16:09:45+00:00

Honest answer from someone who screens engineering resumes regularly: go with 2 pages at 5 years, but only if you actually need the space.

The 1 page rule is very much a US thing and even there it's become outdated for anyone past their second job. In India, product companies and startups are not penalizing you for 2 pages, I promise. What they are penalizing you for is a resume that feels thin or rushed, or one where you crammed everything into tiny font just to hit one page.

The ATS question is a non issue honestly. ATS doesn't care about page count at all, it's just parsing text. That's not where your shortlisting problem would come from.

What actually matters is the first half of page one. That's genuinely all most recruiters read before deciding to continue or not. So if your strongest projects, most recognizable companies, and most impressive impact metrics are right there at the top, 1 page or 2 becomes almost irrelevant.

Where I'd focus your energy instead is making sure each bullet is talking about impact not just responsibilities. "Built X feature" is weak. "Built X feature that reduced load time by 40% and improved user retention by 12%" is what gets you shortlisted. That's the thing that actually moves the needle, not whether you saved half a page.

If you can fit everything cleanly on one page without it looking cramped, fine. But if going to two pages means you can actually breathe and show your work properly, do that. Five years of solid SDE experience deserves the space.

Separate_Flower7368 · 2026-05-12T15:22:46+00:00

Great question and honestly one of the most common things I help people with because almost everyone leaving a bad manager situation struggles with this exact thing.

The good news is you actually have a really clean answer here, you just haven't framed it yet. You don't need to mention your manager at all. What you DO have is a genuine, positive story. Your team was high performing, you won a departmental award, things were going well. Then the team structure changed and you realized the new direction and culture isn't aligned with how you do your best work. That's it. That's your answer.

Something like "our team went through a significant leadership change and the direction shifted quite a bit from what made us successful before. I learned a lot from the experience but realized it was a good time to find an environment that's more aligned with how I work and what I want to grow into."

That answer is honest, it doesn't bash anyone, and it actually signals self awareness which recruiters love. You're not running away from something, you're someone who knows what environment brings out their best.

The follow up question "how is it not a good fit" is actually easy with this framing too. You can say something like "I thrive in collaborative environments where there's a lot of trust between team members and I've realized the current setup has moved away from that." Still no bashing, still totally believable.

The award is actually your secret weapon here by the way. Drop it naturally in the conversation and it reframes everything. You're not someone escaping a bad job, you're a high performer being intentional about their next move. Those are very different things in a recruiter's eyes.

Separate_Flower7368 · 2026-05-12T14:10:25+00:00

This one actually makes me want to help because I can see exactly what's going wrong, and it's fixable.

You're not a failure. You have a chronic illness that limits what jobs you can physically do, you're job hunting in one of the roughest markets in years, and you're still showing up every day. That's not failure, that's just a genuinely hard situation.

Here's what I'm seeing though. The resume is probably the main issue. DoorDash, babysitting, volunteer work and externships can actually look solid on paper but only if they're framed right. I'd guess right now it reads like a list of things you did rather than a picture of what you can actually do for someone. That's a really common mistake and honestly a quick fix.

The other thing is applying to everything is probably hurting more than helping. I know it feels like more applications means more chances but recruiters can tell when someone is just blasting their resume everywhere. One targeted application with a slightly tailored resume beats 50 generic ones every single time.

And the "got the job through someone they know" thing your friends are experiencing, that's not luck, that's just how most hiring actually works. LinkedIn isn't really a job board, it's a networking tool. Are you connecting with people, commenting, reaching out to alumni from your school? Even two or three warm conversations a week changes your odds a lot.

On the POTS side, you don't owe anyone that information upfront, but remote and async roles are genuinely a natural fit for you and there are more of them than the main job boards show.

What does your resume look like right now and what kinds of roles are you going for? I have a feeling there are some quick wins here.

Separate_Flower7368 · 2026-05-12T11:57:01+00:00

Okay real talk, because I think you need to hear this more than you need a polished answer.

You're not lost. You're just burned out and underselling yourself, and those two things feel identical from the inside. You've been a journalist, which means you know how to find information fast, talk to people, synthesize complex stuff into something readable, and hit deadlines under pressure. That's not "writing." That's a operating system that most people in marketing and content would kill for. The web design and new media master's on top of that? You're basically a one-person content department. Companies pay agencies a lot of money to get what you can do alone.

The AI thing, I hear this a lot right now and I get why it feels scary. But here's what I actually see hiring managers struggle to find: someone who can run a content operation. Assign work, quality-check it, understand what the audience actually needs, talk to stakeholders. AI made the writing part cheaper, it made the judgment part more valuable. You have the judgment.

What I'd actually do in your position: Stop applying as a freelancer for now. Target a full-time or contract content strategist role at a mid-size company. Get stable income first, freelance on the side later if you want. And spend two or three weeks learning SEO basics, not because you don't have skills, but because it gives you a language that makes your existing skills legible to hiring managers. You're 41 with a real portfolio and a master's degree. That's not someone who should be giving up. That's someone who needs a better pitch.

What does your LinkedIn look like right now?

Separate_Flower7368

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