Resume Services and ATS

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IE_sciteacher
Posts: 38
Joined: Wed Feb 27, 2019 10:05 pm

Resume Services and ATS

Post by IE_sciteacher »

Hi all,

Recently stumbled across a consulting company that specializes in international teacher recruitment. They offer interview prep, resume building and cover letter support amongst other services. One of the things they highlighted was the importance of your resume being ATS friendly. I'm not going to post the name or website of the company as I don't use them.

I had never heard of this and was wondering if it is me or if this is something that teachers aren't thinking about and should be? ATS is an automated service HRs would use to pre-screen resumes to pick out the ones that would get manual inspection. I can see this being done at larger, well known schools who get +50 applicants for a posting.

If this sort of tech is being used would a less traditional resume to try and stand out actually be a deterrent? Would it make sense to have two versions of a resume, one for fairs and one for online applications?

Curious to here what the collective ISR group thinks.
sid
Posts: 1392
Joined: Sat Dec 02, 2006 11:44 am

Re: Resume Services and ATS

Post by sid »

I don’t personally know of any schools who use such services. I suppose they might, but my guess is it would be limited to the larger school networks- the businesses who own multiple schools. Not sure how much I care about being compliant with their system. If the service is otherwise worthwhile, use it. It won’t hurt. But it’s not a selling point for me. They’re probably just trying to stand out, but they’re doing it by pushing something that makes them look, at least to me, like they don’t know as much as they think.
Wouldn’t large school networks also rely on larger recruiting companies, not small startups?
shadowjack
Posts: 2138
Joined: Sat Oct 06, 2012 9:49 am

Re: Resume Services and ATS

Post by shadowjack »

I've been around awhile and never heard of this. I think it is a gimmick this company is using to try and set themselves apart and get business.
marieh
Posts: 212
Joined: Mon Feb 11, 2013 11:33 pm

Re: Resume Services and ATS

Post by marieh »

ATS compliant resumes are extremely important in other fields (specifically, tech), but I cannot imagine a school using an applicant tracking system. There is simply no need to unless you are dealing with thousands of applications. If you choose to have an ATS-compliant resume, you don't need someone to write it for you. Just keep the formatting simple and make sure you're including key words from the job advert.
PsyGuy
Posts: 10789
Joined: Wed Oct 12, 2011 9:51 am
Location: Northern Europe

Response

Post by PsyGuy »

In IE ATS is almost a nothing. Schrole was and is returning back to being a application management system that incorporates ATS, so its a thing in IE, its just not as important for IE as it is in other fields (such as business and technology). ISs can already perform similar functions with premium agencies such as SA, but most of them dont. They dont spend the time to contact resumes and profiles already on file, they wait to review applicants that apply for the vacancy in the vast majority of cases.

I concur with @Sid and @SJ that if a service company is hawking aggressively ATS in IE, they dont really know what they are doing and dont understand the IE field and the market.

Unless an IT is deep into ESOL and an ET is something they would consider than having an ATS compliant resume for the various job services (Indeed, Simply Hired, etc.) where recruiters recruit for ESs using such databases, paying for their services isnt worth the coin.

Ive seen ITs recruited and hired though services like LinkedIn but thats the exception rather than the rule, at least for ISs that are on the circuit.

50+ applications? No, there are ISs that can get 1000+ applications.

Well you should have two versions of your resume one for digital and one for in person, but they have little to do with ATS. Its more inclusion of a photo and consideration of the paper quality and type.

If you want to make an ATS compliant resume just start a new document, set the file type to plain text or ASCII text (not rich text), left justify, and copy/paste type away. Dont use anything but common punctuation (periods, commas are okay, asterisks and plus signs not okay), line feeds and tabs for formatting in a single mono-spaced font. Include a keyword section at the top or bottom of your resume.

@Sid

Large chain ISs have internal applicant systems. Its more cost effective once you reach scale.
Illiane_Blues

Re: Resume Services and ATS

Post by Illiane_Blues »

I would not be surprised if this is actually just part of a larger a consulting company that does resumes for any job but they market themselves as different companies 'specialising' in niche markets, with each of these having their own name and website.
PsyGuy
Posts: 10789
Joined: Wed Oct 12, 2011 9:51 am
Location: Northern Europe

Comment

Post by PsyGuy »

I concur with @Illiane_Blues, I wouldnt be surprised either if they were just a designated team for IE as part of a much larger consultancy.
Illiane_Blues

Re: Resume Services and ATS

Post by Illiane_Blues »

@IE_sciteache, what is the name of the company?
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