When people who are brand new to resumes hear about Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) after not getting any interviews with their existing resume — their mind is blown.
And some people can handle it.
But there is no better way to taint a resume writing class than to drop ATS within the first day.
If you mention ATS to someone who:
- likes to be perfect
- is desperate
- is super logical
then you just ruined their chance of writing something with heart.
They’ll be buying a Jobscan subscription & mistrusting their own words. (I love jobscan, but I think it’s most useful once you have your stories, not before).
And it’s going to take a lot of effort to convince your students that their words are more important than a scan.
If you’re teaching a one-day workshop, bring up ATS halfway through. Give the participants time to write and create first.
If the class is over multiple days, I wait until day two to talk about formats or ATS. My students write beautiful resumes full of personality that still pass the ATS test.
If you’d like to improve the way to teach resume writing, I’d love to help you. Get into the Resume Writing Teacher course here; https://academy.career-stories.com/resumeschool
