How to Write an ATS-Friendly Resume

What an ATS actually does

An applicant tracking system is the database behind an employer's careers page. When you apply, it stores your application and usually does three things with your resume:

1. Parses it. It extracts the text and tries to fill fields: name, email, phone, job titles, employers, dates, education and skills.
2. Makes it searchable. Recruiters search and filter applicants by keywords, job titles, locations or knock-out questions from the application form.
3. Shows it to people. A recruiter or hiring manager reads the parsed profile, the original file, or both.

The step where resumes most often lose out is the first one. If your job titles land in the wrong field, your dates can't be read, or half your text is missing, you'll rank poorly in searches and look incomplete to the person reading the profile, even if you're well qualified.

Common myths

“75% of resumes are rejected by robots”

This figure is widely repeated without a reliable source. Most systems don't automatically reject resumes on content; people make those decisions, often after searching or filtering. Application-form knock-out questions (such as work authorisation) are a more common automatic filter.

“You need a special ATS template”

You need a clean, text-based document. Plenty of well-designed resumes parse fine; the problems come from specific features, covered below.

“Hide keywords in white text”

Parsers extract hidden text too, and recruiters see it in the parsed profile. It looks like an attempt to game the system, because it is.

“Every ATS reads resumes the same way”

There are many systems, each configured differently by each employer. That's why it's worth avoiding the features that are risky in any of them.

What breaks parsing

These features cause problems often enough that it's worth avoiding them:

Structure an ATS understands

Use conventional section headings: Summary, Experience, Education, Skills, then optional ones such as Projects or Certifications. For each role, give the job title, employer, location if relevant, and start and end dates, followed by bullets. Put the most recent role first.

Keywords, briefly

Recruiters search for the skills and titles they need, so your resume should use the same terms as the job description for things you genuinely do. Write “PostgreSQL” if the posting says so, not only “databases”. Keywords belong in context, in your bullets and skills section, not in a hidden block. The resume keywords guide covers this properly.

PDF or DOCX?

Both are widely supported. A text-based PDF (one where you can select and copy the text) keeps your layout exactly as designed, and modern systems handle it well. Use DOCX when an application asks for Word, and avoid scanned PDFs entirely. Check the file size too: some portals reject files over 2 MB, which usually means an embedded image is too large.

Name the file clearly: Firstname-Lastname-Resume.pdf, not resume_final_v3 (2).pdf.

Test your own resume

Two quick tests catch most problems:

1. The copy test. Open your PDF, select all, and paste into a plain text editor. If text is missing, out of order or garbled, a parser will struggle too.
2. The form test. Many careers pages pre-fill an application form from your resume. If the fields come out wrong, that's how the ATS read it.

QuickHunt's ATS checker automates these checks and more: text layer, layout, images, headers and footers, contact details, dates and section structure. It explains each finding and links it to the field that needs changing.

Checklist