How to Make an ATS-Friendly Resume (and Check It Yourself)
Most employers collect applications in an applicant tracking system, or ATS. Here is what those systems actually read, what trips them up, and a quick test you can run on your own resume before you apply.
What an ATS actually does
An applicant tracking system is the software a company uses to receive applications, store them and let recruiters search through them. Workday, Greenhouse, iCIMS, Lever and Taleo are common ones. When you upload a resume, the system reads the text out of your file and sorts it into fields: name, contact details, job titles, employers, dates, education and skills.
A popular myth says the software throws most resumes away on its own. In practice, people make the decisions: recruiters filter and search the applications, often by job title, skills and keywords. The real risk is quieter. If the system can't read your file cleanly, your details land in the wrong fields or come out scrambled, and your resume is harder to find and harder to read.
Formatting that reads cleanly
- One column. Two-column layouts and sidebars can be read left to right across both columns, mixing your skills into your job history.
- Real text, not images. Text inside pictures, icons or charts can't be read. Skill bars and star ratings don't carry any information either.
- Standard section headings. Use names the system expects: Summary or Profile, Experience, Education, Skills, Certifications.
- Contact details in the body. Some systems skip the page header and footer areas of a Word file, so keep your name, email and phone in the main text.
- No tables or text boxes for layout. They look tidy on screen but are often read out of order or skipped.
- Clear job lines. Job title, employer, city and dates for every role, with the most recent first.
PDF or Word?
Send what the posting asks for. If it doesn't say, a PDF with real, selectable text works well in modern systems and keeps your layout exactly as you designed it. Some older systems read Word files more reliably, so it helps to have both ready.
Use the words from the job posting
Recruiters search for the skills, tools, licenses and job titles named in their own posting. Read the posting and note the specific ones: discharge planning, Salesforce, budget tracking, IEP, CAPM. If you have that skill, use the same words in your summary, skills or bullet points. Don't copy the posting wholesale, and never add a skill you don't have: an interview will find it quickly.
The 2-minute test
- Open your PDF, select all the text and copy it.
- Paste it into a plain text editor, like Notepad or TextEdit in plain text mode.
- Read it top to bottom. Your name, email and phone should be intact. Jobs should come in order, each bullet whole. Words should not be spaced out like
E X P E R I E N C E.
If the text comes out jumbled, an ATS may see it the same way. The usual causes are columns, text boxes, and letters spaced far apart for style.
Quick checklist
- One column, real text, standard headings
- Name, email and phone in the body of the page
- Job title, employer and dates for every role
- Keywords from the posting that are true for you
- One page if you have under about 10 years of experience
- File type the posting asks for
Every Inksets design follows these rules. We test each one with two different PDF text readers to check that your name, contact details, jobs and every bullet come through complete and in order, and the builder shows which keywords from a posting your resume is missing.