CV Keywords: How to Find the Right Words to Beat the ATS

Your CV is the gateway to a new career and professional advancement. To ensure it highlights your abilities and CV puts your best foot forward, you’ll need to impress hiring managers and application filtering software, too. 

Today, approximately 75 percent of employers and 98.8 percent of Fortune 500 companies use an applicant tracking system (ATS) and recruiting management system (RMS) to streamline their hiring process [1,2]. These systems track applicants at every stage of the hiring process, manage applicant pools, and filter applications using keywords.  

Unfortunately, although these systems make recruiters’ lives easier, they also make many applicants’ job searches harder, with ATS filtering out qualified candidates if they haven’t included the right things in their CVs [3]. A 2021 Harvard Business School study found that 88 percent of employers believed their automated applicant systems filtered out qualified high-skill candidates simply because they didn’t match the exact job description. A staggering 94 percent of employers said the system filtered out qualified middle-skilled candidates for the same reason [2]. 

CV keywords are the key to improving your application’s chances of being seen by an employer. In this article, you will learn how the ATS and RMS comb CVs and learn tips for identifying the keywords that could help you land your next job.  

ATS CV keywords

Building a robust understanding of the systems that scan your CV and how they do so can help empower you to use keywords on your CV dynamically. 

What are an ATS and RMS? 

An ATS is a workflow efficiency tool hiring managers use to keep track of job applications across numerous platforms during every stage of the hiring process.

Many companies complement their ATS with an RMS, which allows recruiters to manage hiring activities, such as creating talent pools and scheduling interviews. These systems help employers ease the burden of managing and sifting through large applicant pools through automation. 

How does an ATS work? 

ATS and RMS filter applicants by criteria, such as a specific credential or keyword. After turning your CV into plain text, the system scans this information for the stated criteria. Afterwards, it compares your CV to others and ranks it according to the search query. When this occurs, the system highlights some CVs and effectively hides others.  

Knowing the exact criteria a hiring manager will use to filter CVs is sometimes possible. Some may focus on specific skills, like project management, while others might concentrate on particular credentials, such as a bachelor’s degree. Some might pick something else entirely. That’s where ATS CV keywords come in.

Why do you need ATS CV keywords?

Putting ATS keywords on your CV is vital because these systems use them to rank your job application. 

Remember, the ATS turns your CV into plain text to scan it and identify keywords that match its search intent. The system effectively reduces your CV to a collection of words and focuses only on keywords that match its criteria. 

Some standard filters that recruiters use to rank applications include the following:

• Education 

• Qualifications

• Job title

• Technical skills 

Get your CV ATS-ready

When an ATS or RMS turns your CV into plain text, some elements may not transfer, effectively hiding them from view. 

To make sure your CV is ready for an ATS, career experts advise that you do the following: 

• Use a simple CV design and format

• Employ simple design and avoid using graphics or unusual fonts

• Clearly label CV sections with bold text

• Submit your CV as a Word document. Whilst some systems can read PDFs, not all can. Word documents tend to be a safer bet. 

How to use (and find) CV keywords

The original job posting is the best place to find the critical keywords to include on your CV. Typically, recruiters use job description wording to filter job applications. 

That said, don’t simply stuff your CV with keywords. Instead, you should mirror the phrasing in the job description to describe the skills and experience you possess naturally.  Read on to find out how you can do it yourself. 

1. Scan a job posting for keywords.

The first step is to look at a job listing that interests you and identify the skills and experience that match your own. To keep track of your matches, copy-paste the job description into a separate document and highlight it so you can easily reference it later.   

For example, consider the following qualifications from a real job listing advertising a data analyst position. To identify relevant keywords and phrases, the applicant might go through the job description and put the skills and experience that match their own in bold. 

(Note: While this example only focuses on the qualifications section, you should do this for the job description. Often, employers include other key details elsewhere in a job posting.)  

Basic Qualifications:

• 3+ years of experience working with databases, writing SQL, Excel, and Salesforce

• Demonstrated experience synthesising data and building reports

• Experience in a technology industry or comparable fast-paced industry

• Demonstrated experience in a commercial team focusing on clients/partner needs

Preferred qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in areas like finance, statistics, economics, data analytics, business

• Experience with R, Python notebooks, and Google Sheets is a plus

• Expertise in any or all of these areas is a huge plus: technology (ex. computer science), business (ex. marketing, finance), and health (ex. patient care, pharma)

• Systems thinker who can figure out how data flows today and how to configure it to optimise its usefulness for business partners

2. Divide keywords into skills and experience.

Now that you have identified the skills and experience in the job description that match your own, you should copy-paste them into a list organised by “work experience” and “skills.” The purpose is to create a list that includes the exact phrasing used in the job description because the system will likely search for matching terms using the same language. 

For example, the data analyst from the last section might create a chart that looks like this: 

3. Tailor your CV. 

Once you have organised your work experience and skills, you can begin tailoring your CV using the CV keywords you identified. During this phase, you want to update your CV to include the exact phrasing used in the job description to describe the skills and experience you already possess. 

For example, the data analyst applying for the above job might update their CV to emphasise the skills and experience matching the job description. 

Skills keywords

An excellent way to make skills-based keywords visible is to include them in the skills section of your CV. This section can be divided into technical skills (“hard skills”) and people skills (“soft skills”) to emphasise your suitability for the position. Prioritise your technical skill set on your CV because it is more likely to be searched and prioritised by the ATS than more abstract people skills like “teamwork.”

Experience keywords

A good way to emphasise your matching work experience is to use the key phrases you have already identified in the “work experience” section of your CV. Remember, the purpose here is not to lie on your CV about the experience you don’t possess but to update your CV with phrasing that matches the job description. 

For example, the aforementioned data analyst might note that in one prior job, they “managed a commercial team with a focus on clients and partner needs” to help the ATS and RMS more easily match with them. 

CV keywords elsewhere on your application

In addition to the “work experience” and “skills” section of your CV, you should also include keywords in your cover letter and CV summary. Use only keywords and phrases when they make sense rather than repeatedly or forcibly. Indiscriminate keyword stuffing can lead some systems to avoid your CV. 

For example, the data analyst from our example might write the following CV summary to emphasise their suitability for the position to the ATS: 

“Data analyst with a bachelor’s degree in business and 2+ years of experience working with databases, synthesising data, building reports, and managing a commercial team focused on client and partner needs. Experience in SQL, Excel, Salesforce, and Python notebooks.”

Tip: Tailor your title.

Occasionally, different businesses use different titles for the same position. If you are applying for a job that uses a different title for a position that is the same or similar to one you’ve held, consider changing the title of your previous position to that for which you are applying. This could help the ATS better match your CV.

For example, someone applying to be a “market manager” who was previously called a “community manager” in a similar position should consider changing their previous title to “market manager” to improve their chances of not being filtered out by the system. 

Don’t inflate your title to a position with responsibilities you didn’t hold, such as changing your title from a “sales associate” to a “sales manager.”

4. Apply and repeat for other job postings. 

Once you have finished tailoring your CV and everything is in order, you only need to hit “submit” to apply. Congratulations!

As you are applying to other positions, repeat the process of identifying keywords based on job descriptions and tailoring each CV and cover letter to their respective jobs. 

Next steps

Keywords can transform your CV into a dynamic document that will pass ATS and RMS filters, helping you advance in your endeavours. As you search for a new job, consider obtaining a Professional Certificate to get job-ready by building in-demand skills. Coursera offers 4,000+ courses in a wide range of subjects from more than 200 world-class universities and organisations, such as Google, Stanford, and the University of Michigan. 

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