What to do before your next round of job applications
Do this in order: send deletion requests to the vendors first, fix the resume-parsing problems while those requests are in flight, then start applying. The sequence matters — new applications create new records and can restart retention clocks, so clearing data after you have begun undoes much of the benefit.
Why order matters
Everything below works better done in sequence, for one reason: applying creates records. A deletion request sent in week one, followed by forty applications in weeks two and three, leaves you with forty fresh records and a retention clock that has started again.
Give the requests a head start. Two to three weeks before you plan to apply is a reasonable gap.
Step 1 — Send deletion requests to the vendors
Target the technology vendors rather than individual employers. The employer holds your application to one role; the vendor holds the parsed resume, the candidate profile, the ranking and any assessment results — and because a small number of vendors serve very large numbers of employers, that is the record most likely to matter next time. Why shared vendors are the mechanism.
What makes a request work:
- Send it from the email address you applied with. It is your strongest identity signal. If you have used more than one address over the years, send from each.
- Name the legal basis for your state. Which law applies where you live.
- Keep it short. These are handled by privacy teams working through queues. A clear, plain request outperforms a long one.
- Record what you sent and when. It is what makes a follow-up credible.
Expect a mix: confirmations, partial deletions, requests to verify your identity, and some refusals. All of that is normal. What a recipient can lawfully refuse.
Step 2 — Fix the parsing problems
Do this while the requests are in flight. A large share of fast rejections come from your resume being read incorrectly rather than judged unfavourably. The four mechanics behind an automated rejection.
- One column. Multi-column layouts get read across rather than down, scrambling the output.
- No text inside images, icons, text boxes or tables. Often invisible to a parser entirely.
- Contact details in the body, never in a header or footer.
- Standard section headings — Experience, Education, Skills. Clever alternatives confuse parsers.
- Consistent, explicit dates. Month and year, same format throughout.
- Submit the format requested. If it asks for a PDF, send a PDF with selectable text — not a scan or an exported image.
A quick self-test: copy the text out of your own resume and paste it into a plain text file. What you see is roughly what the parser sees. If it is scrambled or missing sections, fix that before you send it anywhere.
Step 3 — Prepare for the knockout questions
Knockout questions disqualify outright, regardless of everything else. Before you start, settle your answers on:
- Salary expectation — a range you will actually stand behind.
- Work authorisation and sponsorship needs.
- Relocation and on-site or hybrid expectations.
- Notice period and earliest start date.
Answer these consistently and truthfully. The point is to have decided in advance rather than improvising at 11pm on an application form.
Step 4 — Then start applying
Once requests are out and your resume parses cleanly, begin. Two things the research supports:
- Volume genuinely helps. The Stanford work notes that applying across more positions raises the likelihood a candidacy reaches human review at all.
- Vary your routes. Applying through different channels — direct sites, referrals, recruiters — reduces how much any single system determines your outcome.
Step 5 — Follow up on what you sent
Many requests are simply missed rather than refused. One follow-up referencing your original date is usually enough to surface a request that fell through a queue.
Reasonable timing: around 30 days for most recipients, or sooner where a company states a shorter response window. Send it once. A second follow-up rarely adds anything.
A realistic expectation
This is worth doing and it is not magic. Most rejections have ordinary causes — competition, fit, timing. Clearing retained data removes one factor you can actually control, and fixing your resume’s machine-readability removes another. Neither guarantees an interview.
What you get is a search that starts from a clean, correct record rather than from whatever a parser concluded about you two years ago.
Sources
- 29 CFR 1602.14 — Preservation of records made or kept — U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
- Algorithmic Monocultures in Hiring — Stanford Digital Economy Lab
Clear your applicant data before you apply again
ATS Reset writes a deletion request for your state and gives you the privacy contacts to send it to. You send it yourself, from the email address you applied with.
Keep reading
- What is an ATS score?There is no single universal score. Here is what hiring systems actually calculate, and why the shorthand is misleading.
- Can ATS data affect future job applications?How applicant records persist across employers, and where retained data can plausibly influence a later application.
- Why qualified candidates get automatically rejectedKeyword parsing, knockout questions, ranking thresholds and assessment cut-offs — the mechanics behind a fast rejection.