Career
How résumé screening actually works, and what follows from it
Most applications pass through software before a person sees them. What that software does is more mundane than the advice industry suggests.
Applicant tracking systems are primarily databases. They parse an uploaded document into fields, store it, and let a recruiter search and filter. The common claim that they silently reject most applications overstates what they are configured to do in most organisations.
What they genuinely struggle with is layout. Multi-column designs, text inside images or graphics, headers and footers carrying key information, and unusual section headings all parse badly, and a mangled parse is a real disadvantage. A single-column document with conventional headings survives intact.
Vocabulary matters for a simpler reason than keyword stuffing: recruiters search the database using the words in the job description. If you do the work the advert describes but call it something else, the search does not find you. Mirroring the advert's own terms, truthfully, is the whole of it.
Beyond that, the ordinary advice holds. Specific accomplishments beat duties, recent and relevant goes first, and length matters less than whether the first third makes the case.
What to do next. Submit a single-column document using the job advert's own vocabulary for work you have genuinely done.
studentaid.gov outranks this page. Rules, figures and dates change
between academic years. This is written to help you read the official sources, not to
stand in front of them. Start there.
Nothing here is a determination. We cannot tell you what you qualify
for, and no website can. The programme and the office that runs it decide that, after
you apply.
Still have a question?
Describe what you are trying to work out and a member of the team will answer, or direct you to the office that makes the decision.