How to Make an ATS-Friendly Resume

What does an applicant tracking system do?

Most mid-sized and large employers use one; well-known names include Workday, Greenhouse, iCIMS, Taleo and Lever. They differ in detail, but most do the same four things with your resume:

1. Store the file you uploaded, so recruiters can open it exactly as you sent it.
2. Parse it: read the text and fill in a profile with your name, contact details, jobs, dates, education and skills.
3. Let recruiters search all candidates by keywords, titles, locations and other fields.
4. Apply any screening questions the employer set, such as whether you have a required license or the right to work.

The screening questions are where most automatic rejections happen, not the resume layout. If a posting asks whether you hold a license you do not have, the system may filter you out whatever your resume says.

Do applicant tracking systems reject most resumes?

You may have read that a large share of resumes are rejected by software before a human sees them. That figure is repeated widely but rarely traced to a solid source. In most systems, a person decides who moves forward; the software decides how easily they can find you.

That is still a good reason to care. If the parser misreads your job titles or dates, or if the words a recruiter searches for are missing, you can be invisible in a search even though nothing rejected you.

Which layouts do applicant tracking systems read well?

Parsers read text in order, top to bottom. The simpler the path through your page, the more accurately they fill in your profile.

Modern systems cope with more than older ones, and a well-built two-column resume often parses fine. If you do not know which system an employer uses, the one-column choice removes the doubt.

Each of our resume templates carries a rating based on these rules: "ATS-friendly", "Works with most ATS" or "Design-first". Standard headings and a simple reading order rate highest, and most of the ATS-friendly designs are one column; sidebars and graphics lower the rating. It is our assessment of the structure, not a test against every system on the market.

Should you upload a PDF or a Word document?

Either works in current systems, as long as the text is real text. A PDF exported from a resume builder or word processor is fine. A scanned page, a photo of your resume or a PDF made from an image cannot be parsed at all.

If the posting names a file type, use it. If a system asks you to paste your resume into a text box, a plain text version helps; keep it simple, with the same headings and line breaks between entries.

How do keywords work in an applicant tracking system?

Recruiters search their system the way you search the web: by job titles, skills, licenses, tools and sometimes locations. If your resume uses a different word for the same thing, you may not come up.

• Use the exact terms from the posting where they are true for you: "accounts payable" if that is what they wrote, not only "vendor payments".
• Include both an abbreviation and its full form once: "Certified Public Accountant (CPA)".
• Put keywords where they show something you did, in your bullets, not only in the skills list.
• Match your headline to the job title when it honestly describes you.

Do not paste the job description into your resume in white text or tiny print. Recruiters see it when they open the file or the parsed profile, and it ends applications quickly.

Our resume examples by job mark in yellow the words that postings for each job often use, so you can see keywords placed naturally inside real bullet points.

An ATS checklist before you apply

• Standard headings: Summary, Experience, Education, Skills.
• Your name, email and phone number in the body of the page, not only in a header area.
• Each job has a title, an employer, and start and end dates in one consistent format.
• No important text inside images, icons, tables or text boxes.
• The posting's key skills and titles appear where they are true.
• The file is a PDF or Word document with selectable text, named with your name.

A quick self-test: open your PDF, select all the text and paste it into a plain text editor. If the text comes out in a sensible order with nothing missing, a parser will most likely read it well too. Our free ATS resume checker runs these checks for you, in your browser.

What happens after your resume is in the system?

A recruiter usually opens the list of applicants, sorts or filters it, and reads the resumes that look closest to the job. Many open the original file you uploaded rather than the parsed profile, which is why the design still matters: the software gets you found, the page gets you chosen.

Some systems also show a match score that compares your profile with the posting. Treat it as a rough guide for the recruiter, not a verdict. The same advice raises it that makes your resume clearer anyway: the right job title, the skills from the posting, and experience described with specifics.

Does any of this matter when you apply by email?

Less, but it still helps. Small companies and recruiters who receive resumes by email may save them into a system later, and a clean structure makes your resume easy to read for anyone. When you know a person will read it first, a more designed template is a perfectly good choice.

Whichever route you apply through, the content rules are the same: the job title, the key skills in the employer's words, and results you can explain. Our guide to tailoring your resume shows how to get those right for each application.

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