ATS Keywords
ATS Keywords That Get Medical Laboratory Technician CVs Shortlisted
Applicant tracking systems scan medical laboratory technician CVs for specific certifications, instrument names, and compliance terms before a human ever sees them — miss the right phrasing and an otherwise qualified application gets filtered out. Because lab roles are credential-driven and tightly regulated, the keywords that matter are concrete: certification codes, analyzer categories, and named quality systems, not soft-skill adjectives. This guide lists the terms worth including and the generic filler that quietly drags your match score down.
Optimize Your CVATS Optimisation
Must-Have Keywords
Include these keywords in your CV to improve your ATS score.
Strengthen Your CV
Power Phrases
Use these multi-word phrases to strengthen your CV.
Avoid These
Words to Avoid
Remove these overused or weak words from your CV.
ATS Score
Before & After ATS Optimization
Before
Missing Keywords
After
Added Keywords
Formatting
ATS-Friendly Format Tips
Use standard section headers like 'Certifications,' 'Clinical Experience,' and 'Technical Skills' — ATS parsers rely on conventional labels, not creative ones.
Spell out your credential in full at least once (Medical Laboratory Technician, MLT(ASCP)) before using the abbreviation elsewhere.
List instrument and LIS platform names exactly as the job posting phrases them (Sysmex, Roche cobas, Epic Beaker) rather than generic terms like 'lab software.'
Avoid tables, text boxes, and multi-column layouts for your skills section — many parsers scramble or drop content placed outside the main text column.
Export your CV as a standard, text-based PDF or .docx file, never a scanned image, so keyword text stays machine-readable.
Mirror the job posting's exact phrasing for shift and setting requirements ('rotating shifts,' 'on-call,' 'high-volume reference lab') since ATS matching is frequently literal.
FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes — include the credential name and registration number (for example, MLT(ASCP) #12345678) since some ATS and hiring systems specifically scan for a verifiable certification identifier.
Include them whenever you have real hands-on experience, since many labs search CVs for the exact instrument models they run to shorten training time for new hires.
Yes — repeating the same term unnaturally or listing skills you can't support in your experience section can hurt credibility during the human review that follows the ATS screen, so keep keywords tied to real, specific tasks.
No, but make sure the posting's required credential matches yours exactly — if a listing asks for MLS/MT and you hold MLT, tailor your application to roles that explicitly accept MLT-level scope of practice.
Aim for the terms that appear in the specific job posting plus your core certifications and instrument experience — usually 20-30 relevant terms spread naturally across your skills and experience sections is enough without sounding forced.
Yes — naming the specific system (Epic Beaker, Cerner, Sunquest, SoftLab) signals a shorter onboarding curve, and many labs treat it as a near-mandatory keyword.
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