You spent hours on your resume. You applied to 40 jobs. You heard back from two. Sound familiar?
The reason isn't your experience. It's that most companies now use Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) to automatically filter resumes before a recruiter ever opens them. Industry estimates suggest 70–80% of resumes are rejected at this stage alone.
Here's the good news: ATS systems are predictable. Once you know what they're looking for, you can write a resume that reliably gets through.
What Is an ATS?
An ATS is software that companies use to receive, organize, and filter job applications. When you apply through a company's careers portal or LinkedIn, your resume is parsed by an ATS before it reaches anyone's inbox.
The ATS extracts text from your resume, identifies sections (experience, education, skills), and scores it based on how well it matches the job description. Resumes above a threshold get flagged for human review. The rest are archived.
Why Good Resumes Still Fail ATS
Most ATS rejections aren't about lack of experience. They're caused by:
- Keywords in the job description that don't appear in your resume
- Unusual section headings (the ATS doesn't recognize "Where I've Worked" as Experience)
- Content inside tables, text boxes, or headers/footers that the parser can't read
- Graphics, icons, or infographic-style resume templates
- Inconsistent date formatting that confuses the date parser
7 Steps to Make Your Resume ATS-Friendly
1. Use standard section headings
Stick to: Work Experience, Education, Skills, Certifications, Projects. The ATS is trained on these exact words. Creative alternatives like "My Journey" or "What I've Built" will cause your sections to be miscategorized or ignored entirely.
2. Mirror the job description's language
If the job posting says "cross-functional collaboration," use that phrase — not "working across teams." ATS systems match keywords literally. Read the job description carefully and incorporate its exact terminology into your bullet points and skills section.
3. Avoid tables, columns, and text boxes
Multi-column resume layouts look great as PDFs but fall apart in an ATS. Most parsers read left-to-right, top-to-bottom — so a two-column layout will scramble your content into nonsense. Use a single-column format for ATS submissions.
4. Don't put important text in headers or footers
Many ATS systems cannot read content inside the page header or footer. Your name, email, and phone number should be in the main body of the document — not in a styled header block.
5. Spell out acronyms at least once
Write "Search Engine Optimization (SEO)" the first time you use it. Some ATS systems index acronyms separately from full terms. This way you match both searches.
6. Use a clean, simple font
Stick to Arial, Calibri, Garamond, or Times New Roman. Decorative fonts can cause parsing errors. Font size should be 10–12pt for body text.
7. Submit as PDF (usually) — but read the instructions
Modern ATS systems (Greenhouse, Lever, Workday) handle PDFs well. But some older systems prefer DOCX. When the application explicitly requests DOCX, use DOCX. When it doesn't specify, PDF is generally safer because it preserves your formatting exactly.
The Fastest Way to Check Your ATS Score
You shouldn't have to guess whether your resume will pass. HireRaft's free ATS checker scores your resume against a specific job description in under 30 seconds — showing you exactly which keywords you're missing and what to fix before you apply.
Most users improve their ATS score by 20–30 points in a single pass.
Quick Checklist
- Standard section headings (Work Experience, Education, Skills)
- Single-column layout, no tables or text boxes
- Keywords from the job description present in your bullets
- Acronyms spelled out at least once
- Name and contact info in the main body, not a header
- Clean font, consistent date formatting
- File submitted in the format the application requests
Fix these seven things and you'll immediately outperform the majority of applicants who submit visually impressive resumes that the ATS can't read.