Why Keywords Are the Hidden Secret to Improving Your Job Prospects Online

Unspoken rules determine who gets seen

You’ve got a polished resume, ample qualifications and a personal pitch you’re sure will win over any recruiter or human resources department. But before you can do that, you’ll probably have to persuade a robot.

Faced with a never-ending deluge of job applications, most major businesses now use automated filtering systems to shuffle resumes with certain keywords to the top of the pile. And with a growing number of recruiters tapping online networks like LinkedIn for fresh prospects, job seekers find their chances more bound to the whims of various search algorithms than ever before.

Applicant tracking systems (ATS) software emerged in the late 1990s after the dot-com boom made online job applications popular for the first time.

The earliest systems were simple databases for storing and organizing candidate information, but over time they developed keyword-filtering and other automated sorting features.

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