This week saw us getting introduced to ‘RealWORKS’, Falmouth University’s employability service(“Careers Advice And Employability Information | Falmouth University” 2021). The theme saw us looking forward to our futures from a professional perspective. Being fresh out of an undergraduate I have yet to gain any solid professional experience beyond that of a 6 month internship within my college’s web department. I have already created several CVs in the past on different occasions. I decided, however to take this opportunity to create a new CV more directly targeting my chosen field.

Upon further reading I started learning about the existence of software used in the industry known as an ‘Applicant Tracking System (ATS)’. These systems are “used to help manage and automate hiring and recruitment practices for an organization by providing a centralized location to manage job postings, filter job applications, sort through resumes, and identify strong candidates for open positions.” (White 2021).

Due to the increase in applicants in certain sectors, companies have had to adapt in order to streamline their hiring process. An answer to this problem is the ATS. The ATS can automatically filter applicants based on the companies requirements for the role. Unfortunately for the applicants, this means your application can sometimes be dismissed before it ever reaches a human.

A way to avoid this is to tailor your resume in order to fit the standards an ATS expects. Upon researching the topic, I found Novorésumé (“Resume Builder For 2022 | Free Resume Builder | Novorésumé” 2021), an online resume builder which, among other selling points, claims to be “ATS-Friendly”. I found the experience of revisiting my past work and breaking it down into concise chunks extremely motivating. Looking back seeing how far I’ve come in my work so far has me excited looking forward as to what I’ll be able to add to this CV in the coming months.

Finished CV

References