How to make an ATS-friendly resume

Apply for remote jobs and your resume will almost always land in an applicant tracking system, or ATS, before a person sees it. Greenhouse, Lever, Ashby, Workday and SmartRecruiters are the ones you will run into most. Small companies use lighter tools, and the idea is the same.

A lot of folklore surrounds these systems. Most of it scares people and then makes their resumes worse. Here is what an ATS does, how a file can go wrong, and how to write a resume that works for the software and for the person who opens it next.

What an ATS actually does

An ATS is a database for hiring. It does three things.

1. Collects applications. It takes your form answers and your file and attaches them to a job opening.
2. Parses the resume. It reads the file and tries to pull out structured data: name, contact details, job titles, employers, dates, education, skills. That data fills a profile.
3. Lets people search and sort. Recruiters move candidates between stages, leave notes and search for matches.

Formatting matters at the parsing step. The system reads the text in your file, guesses which part is which and stores the guess. When it guesses wrong, your profile can show a blank job title, the wrong dates, or a name that is really your email address.

In most systems the recruiter can still open your original file next to the parsed profile. A parsing error is not always fatal, then, but it makes you harder to find in search and harder to read at a glance.

How recruiters really use it

Picture the recruiter's side. One opening has several hundred applications, and they usually do some mix of the following.

• Open applications in order, newest first, or first those with a form answer that matters, such as location or work authorization.
• Filter on form questions. "Are you legally authorized to work in this country?" "Do you have more than three years of experience with this tool?" People write these knockout questions, and they cut candidates quickly. That is where a lot of remote applications are filtered out, and your formatting has nothing to do with it.
• Search for keywords. Someone looking for a person with a certain tool types it into the search box and gets the profiles that contain it.
• Skim the profile or the file. Most reads are short.

Some systems also rank or score candidates against the job description, and newer versions add AI suggestions. How much a company relies on them varies, and the details are not public. In nearly every case we know of, a human decides who gets an interview, and the system mostly organizes the pile.

What breaks parsing

Parsers read text top to bottom, left to right, and do best with files that look like a plain document. These are the usual troublemakers.

Multiple columns. A two-column layout can get read straight across the page, so your sidebar skills list turns up in the middle of a sentence about your last job. One column is the safe choice.

Tables and text boxes. What is inside them is sometimes skipped or read in a strange order. Keep your experience and contact details out of tables.

Headers and footers. Some parsers ignore them entirely. If your name, email or phone number lives only in the page header, it may never reach your profile. Put contact details in the main body at the top of page one.

Images, icons and graphics. Text inside an image cannot be read. Skill bars and star ratings carry no data. A photo adds nothing, and in many countries leaving it off is fairer to everyone.

Fancy fonts and symbols. A decorative font can turn into junk characters when the text is extracted, and custom bullets can show up as empty boxes. Pick a common font and standard bullets.

PDFs exported from design tools. A resume built in a graphic design program or a template builder sometimes exports with the text chopped into pieces, or as one flat image. If you cannot select and copy the text in your PDF, a parser cannot read it either.

Unusual section names. "Where I have been" in place of "Experience" can leave the parser unsure what it is looking at. More on that below.

Dates in odd formats. Choose one pattern, like "Mar 2023 to Present" or "03/2023 to Present", and stick to it. The parser has to work out how long you stayed.

A quick test you can run

You do not need special software for a first check. Open your resume PDF, select all the text, copy it and paste it into a plain text editor.

Read what comes out. If the order is jumbled, words are missing or characters look strange, a parser will probably struggle too. Some ATS vendors and job boards also have a free resume upload that shows how your file was parsed. Try one if you are unsure.

File format: PDF or Word

Both usually work. The posting decides.

• If the posting says what to send, send that.
• If it does not, a PDF with real, selectable text is a good default, because your layout looks the same on every screen. Export it from a word processor, not a graphics tool.
• Use a .docx when the instructions ask for it, or when your resume is very simple and you want to be safe with older systems.
• Never send an image, a scan or a link to a design file as your main resume.

Name the file with your name and the role, like "Maria-Lopez-Support-Specialist.pdf". "Resume-final-v7.pdf" tells the recruiter nothing and is a pain to find in a folder.

Section names the parser expects

Parsers look for common headings and use them to decide what each block is, so stick with the standard ones.

• Summary or Profile for the short opening
• Experience or Work experience for jobs
• Education for degrees and courses
• Skills for tools and technologies
• Projects, Certifications or Languages if you need them

A creative heading may feel fresh, but it costs you. A plain heading does the job, and the rest of the resume can still sound like you.

Inside each job, keep one order: title, company, location, dates, then bullets. Parsing gets more predictable, and people can scan the page faster.

Keywords, done honestly

Of all the folklore, keywords are the part that is partly true. Recruiters do search, and a search finds the words you used. Say the posting wants experience with a tool and you have it, but your resume never names it. A keyword search will not turn you up.

The honest way to handle it goes like this.

1. Read the posting closely and mark the skills, tools and responsibilities it names.
2. Check them against your own experience. For each one you really have, make sure the resume names it, and use the posting's wording where it is true. The posting says "customer support" and you wrote "client care"? Consider switching to theirs.
3. Show the keyword in context. A bullet saying what you did with the tool and what came of it beats the word sitting in a list, and it holds up when someone asks about it in an interview.
4. Write abbreviations out once, as in "search engine optimization (SEO)", since people search both ways.

Things to avoid:

• Pasting the whole job description into your resume, or adding hidden white text. Recruiters see the original file, and it looks dishonest because it is.
• Listing tools you have never used. Someone will ask you about them.
• A skills list so long it is a wall of terms. Ten to fifteen relevant items beat forty.

To find out what keywords employers use in your field right now, read a few postings for your function. The software engineering, marketing and data and analytics listings show how different the vocabulary gets, even within one industry.

Layout that works for people and for parsers

Plain can still look good. A clean one-column resume with decent spacing reads fine on a phone, in a PDF viewer and in a parser.

• One column, clear headings, even spacing.
• A common font such as Arial, Calibri, Helvetica or Georgia, at 10 to 12 points.
• Standard bullets, short lines, one idea per bullet.
• Bold for job titles and headings only, not for random words.
• Contact details in the body: name, city and country, email, a phone number if you want, and one or two links.
• Links written out as readable text, so they survive printing and copying.
• One page if you have under ten years of experience, two if you have more to say.

For what to put in each section, especially how to show remote skills and where to put your location and time zone, see how to write a resume for remote jobs.

Myths worth dropping

"The ATS automatically rejects most resumes." You will often see a claim that a large share of resumes, three in four or so, get thrown out by software before anyone reads them. We could not find a reliable source for it, and recruiters and ATS vendors have said more than once that their systems do not work that way. Most systems store and sort. Rejections come from people, or from rules people set, like a knockout question about work authorization. Treat the number as a rumor.

"You need a special ATS resume." One clean, readable resume is enough. If it works for a parser, it almost always works for a person.

"Every ATS reads files the same way." They do not. Different systems use different parsers, and the parsers change over time. That is the reason plain formatting is the safe bet: it works everywhere.

"Keywords alone get you the job." They can get you found. After that a person reads the resume, and what persuades them is evidence of results.

"A 90 percent score on a free checker means you are safe." Online resume scanners are built by companies that want to sell you something, and their scores say little about what any particular employer's system does. They can catch real problems, like unreadable text. The number itself means close to nothing.

"Everything must fit on one page." Not if you have a lot of experience. A clear two-page resume is fine.

A checklist before you apply

• You can select the PDF text, copy it and paste it in a sensible order.
• One column, no tables, no text boxes, no images carrying text.
• Name, location and email sit in the main body of page one, not in a header.
• Headings are standard: Summary, Experience, Education, Skills.
• Every job has title, company, location, dates and bullets, in the same order.
• Dates use one format.
• Tools and skills from the posting that you really have are named, ideally in bullets with results.
• Abbreviations are written out once.
• The file name has your name and the role.
• Your answers on the application form match what the resume says.
• Someone else has read it, or you have read it aloud once.

Common questions

Do I need to tailor my resume to each job?

A little, yes. Adjust the summary, move the most relevant bullets up and borrow the posting's wording for skills you really have. You do not have to rewrite the whole thing each time. For the roles you want most, add a short note as well. See how to write a cover letter for a remote job.

Is a two-column template really a problem?

It depends on the parser, and some cope fine. You cannot know which one the company uses, though, and one column avoids the risk at no cost.

Should I put my skills in a separate section?

Yes, a short skills section helps with search and with quick reading. Just do not let it be the only place the skills appear. Mention them in your experience bullets too, where results back them up.

What about LinkedIn and application forms that import my profile?

Importing can save time, but check what it produced. Imported fields often arrive wrong, with merged dates or missing titles. Fix what you see, and upload your own resume file too when the form allows it.

Do I need to worry about all this for every remote role?

Mostly for larger companies and for postings with lots of applicants. Small teams sometimes read applications straight from an email inbox or a spreadsheet. A plain, readable resume works in both cases, so the effort is never wasted. To look for roles, start with the remote jobs list.

Takeaways

• An ATS stores, parses and sorts applications. People make the decisions.
• Parsing breaks on columns, tables, headers and footers, images, odd fonts and PDFs from design tools.
• Use one column, standard headings and a common font, and keep contact details in the body.
• Match the posting's keywords only where it is true, and put them in bullets with results.
• Send a PDF with selectable text unless the posting asks for something else.
• Test by copying the text out of your PDF into a plain editor.
• Treat "75 percent of resumes are auto-rejected" as a rumor.

A short cover letter is the next thing to work on once the resume reads well. Here is how to write a cover letter for a remote job.