ATS to optimize your CV: review of Vmock tool

What is an Applicant Tracking System? This is the question that many recruiters or candidates (less used to technology) ignore. To give you some information, we decided to explain what ATS are and, at the same time, to offer you one of the best tools on the market to optimize your CV and be able to overcome the most difficult selections, even those carried out through the software ATS by the recruiters. 

The ATS are extremely useful for speeding up and optimizing the recruiting process of many companies, which are looking for qualified staff but which, at the same time, receive numerous offers to analyse. 

Traditional recruiting methods are often time-consuming and ATSs were created to simplify the recruitment process.

In this article, we will explain how they work, and we will focus on the presentation of an excellent tool based on ATS, VMOCK, online CV review software.

What ATS are and how they work

An Applicant Tracking System is a software designed to ensure effective and complete management of recruiting in the company.  
The ATS Software allows an organization to collect and organize candidate data and manage all stages of the recruiting process. 

The ATS Software can be used to publish job advertisements on the company website and on Job Boards (job search engines) to screen applications, organize CVs and interviews with candidates. Other features can be pre-screening questionnaires, video interviews, social recruiting, and tracking tool for recruiting metrics.
The ATS Software are used by many companies to make an initial selection of the applications received for a given job offer. The ATS Software, however, do not replace the figure of the recruiter, but provide substantial support in the staff selection phases, as they analyse the various curricula of the candidates and are able, through algorithms, to find the best matches between the characteristics of the candidates and the requirement of published job offers. Therefore, the presence in the curriculum of relevant keywords, well-recognized professional roles, clear and highlighted skills, etc. is important.

Advantages of ATS software

As we said previously, for companies ATS Software are useful tools to speed up the search for the ideal candidate. In addition, such software is often preferred over other selection methods, as it gives everyone the same opportunity to be called back for an interview.

The main advantages of ATS Software can be summarized as follows:

• Accelerate the recruiting process
• Improve the quality of new hires
• Enhance the candidate experience
• Redefine recruiting metrics

Vmock, one of the best tools to optimize your CV with the use of ATS: what it is and why you should use it

VMock is a tool that uses machine learning, predictive analytics, and artificial intelligence techniques, founded by Salil Pande, CEO & Founder, and Christopher Koo, Co-Founder & COO.  

VMock provides feedback on the individual keywords and sentences contained in the resume, thus representing an excellent support tool for compiling resumes, but it is only available for the English language. 

VMock is designed to work with curricula from many sectors, analyses the curriculum from every possible angle, making it as compliant as possible with the requirements dictated by the most popular ATS. 

Once you have registered and uploaded your curriculum to the tool, you can access the online review service to obtain:

• An objective score of each resume based on the comparison with hundreds of resumes created by job hunters.
• Feedback to improve the score in 3 categories (impact, presentation, and competencies), also giving advice on layouts.
• Targeted suggestions for each point in the curriculum based on the Situation-Action-Result (SAR) method. 
• Evaluation of how the competencies have been presented, verifying that the curriculum includes measurable results, presented in clear language with action-oriented verbs.

Once you have received detailed feedback on the changes that should be made within your curriculum, you can modify it and upload it again to the platform to ensure that the final score previously achieved has improved.

If, in the end, after a series of attempts, you are not satisfied with the result achieved, you can send a request for feedback to a consultant.

VMock for candidates

One of the segments that VMock serves is that of those who need to optimize their curriculum to make it compliant with the requirements of ATS Software. 

VMock, in fact:

• Provides targeted and personalized guidance to improve your CV by comparing the uploaded content with over 100 key parameters.
• Evaluates the professional profile and help develop an action plan to optimize your personal branding.
• Optimizes the LinkedIn profile, and allows you to create a coherent narration between your resume and your public profile, adapting the job feed to your preferences and matches in target terms.
• Offers preparations and simulations for in-person and video interviews, providing feedback on your responses, body language, eye contact and voice quality.

VMock for candidates: details

As soon as you enter the website and log in, you will be prompted to upload your CV (in English) and, within a few seconds, the system will already provide you with a general evaluation with a score from 1 to 100 and more specific scores regarding:

• Impact
• Presentation
• Competencies

To get more detailed feedback on these three areas, you will have to upgrade to the premium version by paying the required amount or by inviting 3 friends to have it for free.

At this point, the system will tell you more precisely which elements are present, and which are missing within the areas mentioned above, to make your CV compliant with the requirements of the ATS Software.

Impact

In this area, the following elements are taken into consideration:

• Action oriented: show your experience using action verbs.
• Specifics: the details that make your experience “quantifiable” (costs, number of people in the team, number of departments you supported, etc.).
• Overusage: how many times have you used the same word within the CV.
• Avoided words: words that do not have a big impact (passive sentences, personal pronouns, filler words, etc.).

Presentation

In the presentation area, the following elements are analysed:

• Number of pages: the length of the CV is a critical factor and demonstrates your ability to summarize and prioritize only the most relevant information.
• Essential sections: education and work experiences can never be lacking in any CV.
• Overall format: analysis of the document formatting.
• Section specific: essential elements (name, telephone number, email, etc.).
• Spell check: spelling errors can really make a difference and ensuring that there are none demonstrates your attention to detail.

Competencies

The competencies that are taken into consideration in this area are:

• Analytical: ability to analyse the problem and identify the solution.
• Communication: ability to articulate a message to receive the desired result.
• Leadership: ability to manage a team, projects, or any other element.
• Teamwork: ability to work with other people to achieve a common goal.
• Initiative: problem-solving and innovation ability.

VMock for corporate

VMock, with the use of ATS, represents one of the most used solutions by companies to retain talent and to build an ad hoc growth plan for each employee. 

VMock offers:

• An overall assessment of its staff, with significant insights into basic skills and abilities.
• An assessment of each individual employee, to bridge the future skills gap and to create a well-structured workforce with complementary skills.
• A network of mentors and coaches, to prepare employees for a targeted job opportunity.
• Targeted work feed in line with employee positioning and preferences.

VMock for higher education

VMock, thanks to its ATS, is also a particularly useful tool for students seeking employment, who need to build an effective curriculum.

For students, VMock offers:

• Virtual Coaching, i.e., real-time monitoring of student performance and targeted advice to improve their performance. 
• Automated workflows to effortlessly manage schedules across multiple time zones.
• Emails & newsletters, professionally designed by the system to elevate messaging along with model collaboration and instant notifications.
• Job feeds in tune with candidate preferences to deliver maximum impact for students.
• Analytics & Reporting, with insights into all data streams that allow you to understand what to improve to start your career. 

Pricing

On the website there are a free version and a premium version, which costs 19.95$.

Why buy the premium version? It certainly offers many more benefits, including:

• Impact analysis
• Presentation overview
• Full interactive feedback
• Bullet-level feedback
• Soft skills analysis
• Customized samples

The elements just mentioned are essential to improve your resume and have a clear idea of what to change or add, to make it relevant to ATS Software.

However, if you prefer not to invest this money, the software will offer you the possibility to access the premium version just by inviting 3 friends.

Conclusions

We have seen how, nowadays, many companies use ATS Software. It is therefore necessary, for those wishing to apply for a job offer, to build their curriculum according to specific parameters, which meet the requirements included in the job offer. To have more chances of becoming the best candidates for job offers, it is certainly advisable to rely on review platforms available online, thanks to which you can optimize your resume according to multiple parameters.

In this article, we suggested using VMock, one of the best tools available on the market today, which offers multiple services for both candidates and companies, thanks to the use of its ATS.

If you want to know more about Vmock, please read also: Optimize your Resume: Vmock for candidates

If you are interested in resume builders, please read also: Resume Builders: over 30 tools and the best 10 for us

Be curious! Do not limit yourself and do not stop at our proposal of tools! Check out our article Software Discovery platforms: the top 9 for us to find the one that best suits your needs. 

If you are interested in Personal Branding for startup founders, please read more on: Personal Branding for startup founders