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Jennifer Pagliocca
Bringing expertise in permanent recruitment, specialising in mid to senior-level roles within the Manufacturing, Engineering, Office Services, and Professional Services.
If you’ve applied for jobs online recently and heard nothing back – no rejection, no interview, just silence – there’s a reasonable chance your CV was filtered out before a human ever read it.
Most medium and large employers now use software called an Applicant Tracking System, or ATS, to manage the volume of applications they receive. For a popular warehouse operative or accounts assistant role, that volume can run into hundreds. The ATS scans each CV automatically, scores it against the job description, and decides which ones get passed to a recruiter. If your CV doesn’t clear that filter, it doesn’t matter how good you are for the role.
The good news is that AI tools can help you understand exactly what these systems are looking for – and make sure your CV gives it to them.
ATS software isn’t reading your CV the way a person does. It’s scanning for specific signals: keywords that match the job description, recognisable formatting, and evidence that your experience maps to what the employer needs.
The most common reason strong candidates get filtered out isn’t lack of experience, it’s language mismatch. If a job description asks for someone with experience in “stock control” and your CV only mentions “inventory management,” some systems will score you lower even though they mean the same thing. If the posting asks for “forklift licence” and you’ve written “FLT certified,” the same problem applies.
This is where AI becomes genuinely useful.
Before you change a word of your CV, paste the job description into ChatGPT or Google Gemini and ask:
“What are the most important keywords, skills, and phrases in this job description that a candidate’s CV should reflect?”
The response will give you a prioritised list of the terms the employer and by extension, their ATS, is weighting most heavily. You’ll often spot two or three phrases you wouldn’t have thought to include, particularly for roles in engineering, manufacturing, or accounts where specific software names, certifications, or methodologies matter.
Keep this list open while you work on your CV.
Once you have your keyword list, the next step is finding out where your CV falls short. Copy your CV into the same AI tool alongside the job description and ask:
“Based on this job description, what’s missing or underrepresented in my CV? What should I add, change, or reframe to make it a stronger match?”
This does two useful things. First, it identifies genuine gaps – skills or experience you may need to address or explain. Second, and more commonly, it highlights experience you do have but haven’t described in the right language. A lot of candidates in logistics, production, and office support roles undersell themselves simply because they use informal language to describe what they do day to day.
This is where most people go wrong. They take the keyword list, paste it into their CV wherever it fits, and end up with something that reads like a list of buzzwords rather than a picture of a real person.
Modern ATS software is increasingly good at detecting this, and human recruiters find it immediately off-putting. The goal isn’t to stuff keywords in, it’s to make sure your genuine experience is described using the same language the employer uses.
Ask AI to help you rewrite individual bullet points rather than your whole CV at once. For example:
“Here’s a bullet point from my CV: ‘Responsible for checking products before dispatch.’ Rewrite it to be more specific and results-focused, using language that matches this job description: [paste description].”
A stronger version might read: “Conducted pre-dispatch quality checks on outbound stock, reducing error rate and ensuring compliance with customer delivery standards.”
Same experience. Much stronger framing. And it naturally incorporates the kind of language an ATS is trained to recognise.
If you’ve been using AI tools in your work or job search, it’s also worth thinking about whether and how to mention that on your CV itself. It’s increasingly relevant to employers, but how you frame it matters — our guide on how to talk about AI skills on your CV walks you through how to do it in a way that adds credibility rather than raising questions.
Even a perfectly worded CV can fail at the ATS stage if the formatting confuses the software. Before you think about layout, it’s worth making sure you’ve got the basics right – including length. If you’re unsure how long your CV should actually be, our guide covers exactly that and is worth a read before you start making changes.
When it comes to formatting, some things that look good on screen cause real problems for automated parsing:
You can ask and AI tool like ChatGPT to review your CV layout and flag any formatting that might cause parsing issues, though for the most reliable check, tools like Jobscan or Resume Worded are built specifically for this and will give you a compatibility score.
The single most impactful thing you can do is tailor your CV for each role rather than sending the same version everywhere. This sounds time-consuming, but with AI it doesn’t have to be.
Keep a master CV that contains your full experience written in detail. For each application, paste the master CV and the job description into ChatGPT and ask:
“Which parts of this CV are most relevant to this role, and how should I adjust the language and emphasis to make it a stronger match?”
Use the response to make targeted edits, adjusting two or three bullet points, updating your personal summary, and checking your keywords rather than rewriting from scratch each time. The whole process can take ten to fifteen minutes once you have your master document in good shape.
AI can help you present your experience more effectively. It cannot invent experience you don’t have, and it’s important to be clear on that distinction.
If a role requires a specific qualification – a forklift licence, an accountancy certification, a particular software system – and you don’t have it, no amount of keyword optimisation will change that. Misrepresenting your experience in a CV creates problems that are far worse than not getting the interview: it damages your credibility with the recruiter and the employer, and in some sectors it creates genuine compliance or safety issues.
That said, there’s a difference between misrepresenting your experience and framing it honestly but strategically. If your career history includes a period of redundancy, for example, you don’t need to hide it, but how you explain it on your CV does matter. Our guide on how to explain redundancy on your CV covers how to address it in a way that’s straightforward and doesn’t work against you.
Use AI to articulate what you genuinely bring to the role as clearly and compellingly as possible. That’s a legitimate and valuable use of the tool.
If you’re applying through a recruitment agency like Allstaff, the ATS dynamic is different. We submit candidates directly to employers from our own database, which means your CV isn’t going through an online application portal in the same way. What matters most in that context is that your CV gives our consultants a clear, accurate picture of your experience so we can match you to the right roles and represent you well.
That said, the same principles apply – clear language, relevant detail, and formatting that’s easy to read will always work in your favour. Once your CV is in good shape, the next step is making sure you’re equally well prepared when an interview comes through. AI can be just as useful in that part of the process as it is for CV writing — our guide on how to use AI to prepare for a job interview walks you through exactly how to use it effectively, from generating likely questions to practising your answers before the day.
If you’d like a fresh pair of eyes on your CV before you start applying, get in touch with the Allstaff team. We work with candidates across warehousing, logistics, manufacturing, engineering, accounts, marketing, and office support roles across Glasgow, Paisley, and central Scotland.