Avoid the Line!

As we move into a world where artificial intelligence can now pass the bar exam, it’s shocking that we also live in a world where Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) can boot qualified candidates based on stylistic errors.

One error we recently heard about is that placing a horizontal line across the resume to delineate sections may cause the ATS to read it as a formatting error. The ATS will scramble the text immediately following the line.  That’s not good if you are summarizing your experience and (correctly) putting your most relevant information at the top. 

The most obvious way to solve for this problem is to remove horizontal lines across your resume and just use a section header (maybe underlined) to delineate the new section instead.

Until computers get smarter, we have to play by silly rules.  Apparently removing lines is one way to make sure that you get noticed!