Truth Behind Influencer-Made Resumes vs Professionally Written Ones.
By Rakhee Mansukhani | UAE’s No. 1 Resume Writer & Career Coach
If Resume Advice Has Left You Confused, You’re Not Alone.
What is ATS? How does it work? Or have you recently been told that your resume isn’t ATS-friendly? Did you upload it on ChatGPT or Gemini because friends said things like “You don’t have keywords” or “You haven’t written your achievements properly”? Did all this mixed advice leave you feeling stressed, unsure, and a little overwhelmed? Maybe influencers told you to keep multiple versions of your CV, and now you’re wondering what’s right and what’s unnecessary. And somewhere in the middle of all this, you might even be asking yourself, "Do I even know what ATS actually is?”
Below is an eye-opener
The Confusion Every Jobseeker Faces
If you've ever uploaded your resume to ChatGPT or an online ATS checker and watched it come back with a disappointing score, you’re not alone. Many job seekers get even more confused when a plain, dull, zero-design CV scores higher than their professionally structured, visually polished resume.
The first reaction is usually panic:
- “Is my resume bad?”
- “Should I remove all design?”
- “Why is my simple CV scoring higher?”
- “What does ATS even see?”
Let me clear the confusion once and for all:
THE PROBLEM IS NOT YOUR RESUME. THE PROBLEM IS THE WAY PEOPLE MISUNDERSTAND ATS.
What ATS Really Does (And What It Doesn’t)
ATS — Applicant Tracking System is not a judge of your intelligence, potential, or professionalism.
It is simply a text-reading tool employers use to:
- store resumes,
- scan them,
- extract text,
- match keywords to the job description.
ATS does not understand design, language tone, context, or relevance. It only checks whether your resume contains the words the recruiter has asked it to find.
Why does a Plain Resume Sometimes Scores Higher?
To humans, a plain resume looks extremely basic. To ATS, it is easy to read. ATS can only read plain text, so simple layouts often produce higher ATS scores. This does not mean those resumes are better. It only means they were easy for software to scan.
Why Beautiful Resumes Score Lower, But Still Matter More.
Many jobseekers misunderstand how ATS works and assume that adding more will make their resume better. They start stuffing their CV with excessive keywords, unnecessary information, or decorative elements like icons, shapes, boxes and company logos to make it look impressive. But ATS does not reward clutter. In reality, keyword dumping, irrelevant details and visually crowded layouts make your resume harder to read for both ATS and humans.
A well-structured resume can include simple visual elements, but when the formatting becomes too complex, especially in Canva-made PDFs, the ATS may scan it incorrectly or treat parts of it as an image. This causes the system to skip text or read your content in the wrong order. As a result, your resume may have strong content but still score low, not because it’s weak, but because the software cannot interpret overly designed formatting.
What truly matters is clarity, relevance, clean formatting and content that genuinely reflects your experience, not filler words, forced keywords or decorative distractions.
But here’s the important truth:
Recruiters do not read resumes through ATS. They read them as humans.
And humans pay attention to:
- spelling,
- formatting,
- clarity,
- layout
- tone,
- structure,
- achievements,
- Presentation.
A well-structured, aesthetically pleasing resume shows that you understand your own experience, you respect the recruiter’s time, and you care about how you present your career.
The Biggest Truth Jobseekers Don’t Know: Recruiters Decide the Keywords
- ATS does not choose keywords.
- ATS does not decide what skills matter.
- ATS does not filter based on intelligence.
Inside every HRMS (Human Resource Management System), the recruiter manually enters:
- required skills,
- certifications,
- tools,
- experience level,
- job title keywords.
ATS simply searches your resume for those exact words. If your resume does not include them, you will not appear in the match list even with a “95% ATS score.”
The Truth Behind Influencer-Made Resumes vs Professionally Written Ones
It’s important to understand something many jobseekers don’t realize. Today, several influencers and so-called “CV services” design resumes with one goal in mind: to score high on ATS checkers.
They proudly display “95% ATS score!” as if that alone guarantees interview calls. But when you actually look at these resumes, they are often:
- visually unappealing
- poorly formatted
- confusing to read
- filled with generic content
- written without proper structure
- lacking achievements or clarity
- grammatically incorrect
- inconsistent in tone and tense
In simple words: High ATS score, low professional value.
These resumes may technically pass ATS but the moment a human recruiter opens them, they fail. Influencers chase scores. Professional resume writers chase results.
How Real HRMS Systems in the UAE Use ATS
Most UAE companies use HRMS platforms with ATS modules built inside them. The most commonly used include:
- Oracle HCM Cloud (Taleo),
- SAP SuccessFactors,
- Workday HCM,
- Darwinbox,
- Zoho People + Zoho Recruit,
- BambooHR,
- Bayzat.
All these systems follow the same process:
- the recruiter creates the job post,
- enters the required keywords,
- ATS scans for those keywords,
The system sorts the profiles; a human recruiter makes the final decision.
What Actually Gets You an Interview?
- Not a plain CV.
- Not a Canva CV.
- Not a high ATS score.
- Not a direct message to a recruiter.
What gets you an interview is a resume that is:
- readable for ATS,
- impressive to humans,
- aesthetically pleasing,
- error-free,
- professionally written,
- formatted in correct tense and tone,
- aligned to the job,
- clear, confident, and achievement‑focused.
Final Conclusion: Balance Is What Gets You Hired
So neither a plain CV, nor a Canva-designed CV, nor a high ATS score, nor even direct contact with a recruiter will get you the job it has to be a balanced, strategically written, and aesthetically pleasing resume that works for both ATS and humans.
If you truly want to stand out in a crowded talent market, invest in a resume that does justice to your journey not one that simply chases an online score.
A well-crafted resume doesn’t just pass systems. It opens doors.
And when you’re ready to build a resume that reflects your real potential, I’m here to help you do it right. Rakhee Mansukhani
First Impression Matters — because you don’t get a second chance to make one
– Rakhee Mansukhani UAE’s No. 1 Resume Writer & Career Coach, Founder of Your Resume Writer.
Connect on +971555873006 | WhatsApp | WhatsApp Job Support Channel | Instagram
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Feel free to drop comments or ask questions! I will be more than happy to respond them.
