Resume Advice: Style vs ATS compatibility?
After getting laid-off one month into the pandemic, I took the time to totally revamp my resume to give it a more modern, eye-catching design. Once I felt confident in the changes, I made sure to solicit feedback on my new resume from trusted professional colleagues, friends and mentors. I made the recommended revisions, and have since even received a few compliments from recruiters on the stylish, easy-to-read format of this new resume. However, after using the pdf version of this resume to apply to 20+ online job listings, it was recently flagged to me that a potential reason I may not be getting any responses is that my stylish resume is not easily parsed by ATS, the automated resume filtering system. A quick ATS scan online confirmed this suspicion: the beautiful resume that I've been making sure to customize before each job submission is likely not even being read by recruiters due to it not being recognized by the ATS scanners.
Here is where I face my dilemma: should I scrap my stylishly crafted resume for a far more plain but ATS compatible version? Is it worth sacrificing the individuality of my current resume to make it through the first gates of the infamous ATS robot?
Any advice, especially from those with recruiting/HR experience receiving applications, is appreciated!
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