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The ATS-friendly resume checklist

An applicant tracking system does three things to your resume: turns it into plain text, sorts that text into sections, and lets recruiters search and rank it. An ATS-friendly resume is simply one that survives all three. Here is what that takes.

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1. Make sure a machine can read it

• Send a text-based PDF or a .docx. Export from Word or Google Docs with “Save as PDF”. A PDF made by scanning paper, or exported from a design tool as an image, contains no text at all: the ATS sees a blank page. If you can’t select the words with your cursor, neither can the software.
• Use one column. Parsers read left to right, top to bottom. Two-column layouts get interleaved, so your job title can land in the middle of your skills.
• Keep contact details out of headers, footers and text boxes. Many parsers skip them. Put your email and phone in the body, at the top.
• Skip tables, icons, charts and skill bars. A five-dot rating for “Python” parses as nothing. Write the word.

2. Help it file you correctly

• Use the standard headings: Experience, Education, Skills, and optionally Summary. “Where I’ve made an impact” is charming to a person and invisible to a parser.
• Write dates consistently, such as “Mar 2021 – Present”. The ATS uses them to work out your years of experience.
• Put the job title, employer and dates on predictable lines for every role, in the same order each time.

3. Match the words in the posting

• Use their exact terms where they’re true of you. If the posting says “Kubernetes” and you wrote “K8s”, an older ATS scores that as a miss. Recruiters also search by keyword months after you apply.
• Spell out acronyms once: “Applicant Tracking System (ATS)”, “Registered Nurse (RN)”. You match either search.
• Put keywords in context. A bullet that says what you did with the skill beats a skills list alone, for the software and for the human who reads it next.
• Don’t stuff. Hidden white text and pasted-in job descriptions are detected, and a person reads your resume before any interview. It has to be true.

4. Then make it good for the human

• Numbers in at least 40% of bullets. “Cut reporting time from 3 days to 4 hours” is remembered. “Responsible for reporting” is not.
• Start bullets with a strong verb (Led, Built, Cut, Grew), drop “I” and “my”, and keep the whole thing to 400–900 words.

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Our checker runs this list for you: drop in a PDF or Word file and it tells you whether a machine can read it, which headings and details it found, and how well your wording matches a specific job. It runs on your own device, so your resume is never uploaded, and there is no sign-up.

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