The real question nobody asks

When I talk with job seekers, they often ask me "what is an ATS?" But the question that should come right after, and that nobody asks, is: "does the company I'm applying to use one?"

Because the answer completely changes how you should prepare your CV.

Spoiler: if you're applying to a company with more than 200 employees, there's a very good chance your CV goes through an automated filter before it lands on anyone's desk.

Large corporations: almost all on ATS

No surprise here. Every company in the CAC 40 (France's blue-chip stock index) uses an ATS. Every single one. No exceptions.

LVMH uses Workday. So does L'Oréal. Sanofi is on Taleo (Oracle). BNP Paribas, Société Générale, Crédit Agricole: they all have an in-house system or a major vendor's platform.

Decathlon uses SmartRecruiters. Carrefour is on SuccessFactors (SAP). Total, Airbus, Safran: same story.

What this means in practice: when you apply on LVMH's careers site, your CV is first read by a bot. If the bot doesn't find the right keywords, your application gets sorted to the bottom of the pile. You could be the perfect candidate; it makes no difference.

Mid-size companies and growing SMEs: the surprise

This is where it gets interesting. You might think small and mid-size companies still hire "the old-fashioned way" with stacks of paper CVs. That's less and less true.

As soon as a company goes past 50 hires a year, it invests in a tool. Not necessarily a heavyweight like Workday, but more accessible solutions: Teamtailor, Recruitee, Flatchr, Taleez.

I talked with the HR director of a 180-employee manufacturing company in the Rhône-Alpes region. They've used Flatchr since 2024. Before that, their HR person spent 3 hours a day sorting CVs. Now the software does a first pass and she only looks at the top 20. The other 80? She never sees them.

Food for thought.

Startups and scale-ups: it depends

Startups with fewer than 20 people often hire through their network. No ATS, no filter. The founder reads the CVs personally.

But as soon as the company raises funds and shifts into growth mode, it gets equipped. Lever, Greenhouse, Ashby: these are the favourite tools of French tech startups.

Welcome to the Jungle has its own built-in matching system. LinkedIn has its own internal ATS (LinkedIn Recruiter). Indeed does algorithmic pre-screening.

Job platforms: the invisible filter

This is the point many candidates overlook. Even if the hiring company has no ATS, the platform you apply through does.

When you apply via Indeed, your CV is filtered by Indeed's algorithm BEFORE it reaches the employer. Same thing on LinkedIn, APEC (France's executive job association), or Welcome to the Jungle.

Bottom line: even when applying to a bakery that's hiring on Indeed, your CV gets filtered by a bot.

How can you tell if a company uses an ATS?

Simple method: go to the company's "Careers" page. If the application form asks you to upload a CV and fill in fields (name, experience, skills), it's an ATS.

If it's just a button saying "Send an email to hr@company.com," there's probably no ATS.

Another clue: if the form URL contains "workday," "greenhouse," "lever," "smartrecruiters," "teamtailor" or "recruitee," you're on an ATS.

What should you actually do?

The answer is simple: assume EVERY online application goes through a filter, and prepare your CV accordingly.

That means: the right keywords for the role, a simple structure, no Canva columns, no image-based PDFs. The basics that our complete guide covers in detail.

And if you want to know exactly how these systems will read your CV, test it. It's free, it takes 30 seconds, and you'll have your answer.

Which companies use an ATS in France? The list may surprise you