What is ATS? It stands for Applicant Tracking System and it’s an automated way of sifting and ranking CVs and job applications.

It’s potentially something that will stop you getting an interview if your CV is formatted or laid out in anything but the most simple fashion.

You need to avoid the following:

1. Graphics, Icons, Symbols or company logos – that means you IT people!

2. Text boxes or tables – these confuse the automated CV readers

3. Side panels with additional information in them

Basically you need to stick to a nice simple (some might say boring) layout, using a simple, easy to read font (Arial or Calibri are good) with a font point size of 10 or 11.