Applicant tracking system (ATS)
Glossary
An applicant tracking system (ATS) is the software employers use to receive applications, screen them, and move candidates through hiring stages. Older ATS screening leaned heavily on exact keyword matches, which is where "beat the ATS" advice came from.
Discovery platforms work differently: instead of you applying into an ATS and hoping a filter catches the right words, recruiters search by meaning and find you. That's why the better strategy is to describe real outcomes rather than keyword-stuff for a parser.
See also semantic matching and how to build a searchable candidate profile.
Related: Semantic matching, Candidate profile, Boolean search