Why You Didn’t Hear Back: How Applicant Tracking Systems Score, Rank, and Quietly Reject Job Seekers cover art

Why You Didn’t Hear Back: How Applicant Tracking Systems Score, Rank, and Quietly Reject Job Seekers

Why You Didn’t Hear Back: How Applicant Tracking Systems Score, Rank, and Quietly Reject Job Seekers

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 Early in your career, you’ve likely applied to jobs, met the requirements, and heard nothing back. No response. No rejection. The reason might be software—not a person. Enter the Applicant Tracking System (ATS) Most companies with 1,000+ employees—and many smaller ones—use an ATS. The bigger the brand, the more likely your resume hits software before a person. ATS platforms don’t just organize applications—they screen, rank, and often decide who gets seen, using AI or rule-based filters to sort candidates before any human is involved. Popular ATS Platforms: Workday Recruiting iCIMS Talent Cloud Oracle Taleo SAP SuccessFactors Greenhouse SmartRecruiters Lever Odds are, if you clicked "Apply" at a major company, your resume was parsed and scored by one of these before a recruiter ever opened their dashboard. Ranking: The Invisible Interview You apply. The ATS extracts titles, employers, skills, and education from your resume. Then it compares that data against the job description. Some tools rely on keyword matching. Others use machine learning to assess "fit." Then it assigns you a score. You don’t see the score. Recruiters do. Tier 1: Great match Tier 2: Could work Tier 3: Probably not In high-volume roles, recruiters often stop at the top ranks. The rest? Never reviewed. Your resume didn’t get rejected. It got buried. Is That a Rejection? Not technically. But if no human ever saw your application because a machine deprioritized it, then for all practical purposes, yes—it’s a rejection. But Don’t Recruiters Reject Candidates? They do. But in most roles, they don’t have time to dig through every applicant. ATS platforms use knockout questions—“Are you authorized to work in this country?” “Do you have X certification?”—that can trigger an auto-rejection. But most early-career applicants aren’t failing those. They’re just ranked too low. The recruiter checks the top 10 or 20 resumes and moves on. The rest get a generic rejection weeks later—even though no one ever read them. Effectively Rejected = Practically Rejected If your resume never surfaces due to a low ATS score, the software decided your fate—not because you lacked potential, but because you didn’t speak its language. Wrong phrasing? No keywords? Nonstandard formatting? You're out. Mobley v. Workday: A Lawsuit with Teeth In 2023, Julian Mobley filed a lawsuit against Workday. He’s Black and alleges that after applying to hundreds of jobs using Workday’s ATS, he was functionally rejected—repeatedly—before any human review. His legal team argues that Workday’s ATS isn’t just a tool—it functions as a staffing agency. And staffing firms are subject to anti-discrimination laws. If the software filters people out based on criteria that lead to racially biased outcomes—even unintentionally—it may be liable. Workday denies wrongdoing, claiming their software is just one part of a broader process. But the lawsuit reframes the conversation: if the ATS controls who gets seen, it’s more than software. It’s an actor. And if it filters candidates disproportionately, that’s a civil rights issue. The Stakes If courts side with Mobley, it could change the hiring landscape: – Required transparency around scoring algorithms – Legal accountability for discriminatory filtering – Pressure on employers to audit how tech shapes decisions What You Can Do The system is flawed, but not unbeatable. Tailor your resume to match each job description. Use the employer's language for skills and titles. Avoid tables, columns, or graphics. They break parsing. Don’t rely solely on online applications. Find a referral. Flag your name. None of this guarantees success. But it increases your odds of making it past the machine—and into the human conversation. Because right now? If the system doesn’t like your resume, no one sees it. No one considers it. No one calls you back. The ATS didn’t just track your application. It made the first—and most critical—decision. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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