How to write an ATS-friendly resume

What an ATS actually does with your resume

When you upload a resume, the ATS extracts the text and tries to identify sections and fields: your name and contact details, job titles, employers, dates, education and skills. That parsed data populates your candidate profile, which recruiters search with keywords and filters such as job title, location or years of experience.

A common myth is that a robot automatically rejects most resumes. In practice, many systems do not auto-reject on formatting alone; rejections usually come from knockout questions in the application form (such as work authorisation or required certifications) or from a recruiter who never finds your profile because the important information was not parsed or did not match their search. The goal of ATS-friendly formatting is simply to make sure your real experience lands in the right fields and contains the words a recruiter will search for.

Layout rules that help parsing

Parsers read text in order, and they are much more reliable with a simple, single-column layout. Complex layouts can scramble the reading order so that dates attach to the wrong job or skills merge into your job descriptions.

• Use a single-column layout for the main content. Two-column designs often parse correctly in modern systems but are a common source of jumbled text in older ones.
• Avoid tables and text boxes for core content. Many parsers skip text inside text boxes and read table cells in an unexpected order.
• Keep your name and contact details in the body of the document, not in the header or footer, because some parsers ignore header and footer regions.
• Do not put important text inside images, icons, charts or skill bars. Text in graphics cannot be extracted at all.
• Use standard bullet points rather than unusual symbols, and avoid placing information only in colour or font styling.
• Stick to common fonts such as Arial, Calibri, Georgia, Garamond or Helvetica at 10 to 12 points for body text.

Use standard section headings

Parsers look for familiar headings to decide where each section starts. Creative labels like 'Where I have been' or 'My toolbox' can cause a section to be missed or misfiled. Use plain headings such as Summary, Experience or Work Experience, Education, Skills, Projects, Certifications and Volunteer Experience.

Within the Experience section, keep a consistent pattern for every role: job title, employer, location (optional), and dates. Put dates in a consistent format such as 'Mar 2022 – Present' or '03/2022 – Present' so the system can calculate tenure. Avoid writing only the year for some roles and the full month for others.

Keywords: match the job without stuffing

Recruiters search the ATS for skills, tools, certifications and job titles taken from the job description. If the posting asks for 'project management' and 'Jira' and your resume says 'led delivery' and 'ticketing tools', a keyword search may not surface you.

Read the job description and list the hard skills, tools, qualifications and responsibilities it repeats. Then make sure the ones you genuinely have appear in your resume in the same wording, ideally in context within your experience bullets as well as in the skills section. Include both an acronym and its full form the first time, such as 'Search Engine Optimization (SEO)', because recruiters may search either.

Do not paste the job description in white text or repeat keywords unnaturally. Recruiters read the parsed text, hidden text is easy to spot, and keyword stuffing makes an otherwise strong resume look untrustworthy.

PDF or Word: which file type to upload

Follow the employer's instructions first. If they ask for a .docx file, send one. Otherwise, a text-based PDF exported from a word processor or resume builder parses well in nearly all modern ATS platforms and preserves your layout exactly. A .docx file is the safest choice for older systems and recruitment agencies that edit resumes.

Never upload a scanned image or a PDF made by printing a picture of your resume: if you cannot select and copy the text in the PDF, the ATS cannot read it either. A quick test is to open the PDF, select all, copy and paste into a plain text editor. If the text comes out in the right order with your sections intact, it will usually parse well.

Portfolio OS exports resumes as text-based PDF, editable Word (DOCX) and plain text, and its 12 templates include an ATS Minimal design plus ATS and content checks for headings, dates, length and keywords.

Common ATS mistakes to avoid

Most parsing problems come from a handful of habits. Fixing them takes minutes and makes your resume easier for people to read too.

• Contact details placed only in the document header or footer
• Skills shown as star ratings, progress bars or logos instead of words
• Job titles and dates in a separate column from the descriptions they belong to
• Unusual section names or no section headings at all
• Inconsistent or missing dates, or dates written only as seasons
• File names like resume_final_v7.pdf instead of Firstname-Lastname-Resume.pdf
• Submitting the same untailored resume to every job

Write for the human who reads it next

An ATS only gets you into the shortlist; a person makes the decision. Once the format is clean, focus on content: start each bullet with a strong verb, describe the result rather than the duty, and add numbers where you can. 'Reduced monthly cloud costs by 18 percent by right-sizing database instances' is both keyword-rich and persuasive.

Keep the resume to one page for early-career roles and up to two pages for experienced candidates, and put the most relevant experience near the top where both parsers and people pay the most attention.

Frequently asked questions