ATS Resume Tips: How to Get Past Applicant Tracking Systems

Most medium and large employers run applications through an applicant tracking system (ATS) such as Workday, Greenhouse, Lever, or iCIMS. There's a lot of fear around these systems, much of it overstated: an ATS is mainly a database and workflow tool, not a robot that silently rejects 75% of resumes. But it does affect how your resume is read, and a few practical choices make a real difference.

What an ATS actually does

When you apply, the ATS:

1. Stores your resume and usually parses it into fields: name, contact details, job titles, employers, dates, education, and skills.
2. Shows recruiters a profile built from those fields, often alongside the original file.
3. Lets recruiters search and filter candidates by keywords, titles, locations, and answers to screening questions.
4. Applies knockout questions set by the employer, such as work authorization, required licenses, or willingness to relocate.

Automatic rejection usually comes from those screening questions, not from the resume's formatting. The real risk with a resume is different: if the parser mangles it, or if it lacks the words a recruiter searches for, you're harder to find and harder to read.

Formatting that parses cleanly

• Use one column. Two-column layouts are the most common cause of jumbled parsing: text from the left and right columns gets interleaved.
• Use real text. The PDF must contain selectable text, not an image of a resume. Scanned resumes often parse as nothing at all.
• Keep contact details in the body. Some parsers skip headers and footers in documents.
• Use standard section headings. "Experience", "Education", "Skills", "Certifications". Creative headings like "Where I've Been" can confuse parsers.
• Avoid tables, text boxes, and graphics for content. Skill meters, icons standing in for words, and charts carry no parseable information.
• Use consistent dates. "Jan 2022 – Present" or "2022 – Present" throughout.
• Choose PDF or DOCX as the employer asks. Modern systems handle text-based PDFs well. If a posting asks for Word, send Word.

dotresume produces text-based PDFs with a single-column body and standard headings, so the content is selectable and parses in a predictable order. Every resume example on this site uses that structure.

Keywords without stuffing

Recruiters search for terms from the job description: titles, tools, certifications, and core skills. Your resume should use the same words where they're true for you.

1. Read the posting closely. Note required skills, tools, and certifications, and the exact phrasing ("financial modeling", "Epic", "SHRM-CP").
2. Mirror the language. If they say "customer success" and you wrote "client services", use their term where it accurately describes your work.
3. Put keywords in context. A skill named in a bullet with a result ("Built Tableau dashboards used by 40 merchants") is stronger than the same word in a list.
4. Include both forms of acronyms. "Certified Public Accountant (CPA)", "Search Engine Optimization (SEO)".
5. Never hide keywords. White text and invisible keyword blocks are an old trick; modern systems show recruiters the extracted text, and it looks exactly like what it is.

The data analyst, accountant, and nurse examples show skills and certifications phrased exactly as job postings tend to phrase them.

Job titles and dates matter more than you think

Recruiters often filter by title and years of experience. Use your real title, and if it's unusual, clarify it: "Member of Technical Staff (Software Engineer)". Make sure dates are complete, so the system can calculate tenure correctly.

Certifications and licenses

For regulated roles (nursing, accounting, law, HR, engineering), licenses are often hard filters. List them in their own section with the full name, issuing body, and status or expiration:

• "Registered Nurse, Arizona (multistate compact license), exp. 2027"
• "SHRM Senior Certified Professional (SHRM-SCP), 2022"

The HR manager example puts certifications in a separate section for exactly this reason.

How to check what an ATS will see

A quick test you can run yourself:

1. Open your PDF and select all the text (Ctrl+A or Cmd+A), then paste it into a plain text editor.
2. Read it top to bottom. Is everything there, in a sensible order? Are any words merged or garbled?
3. Check that your name, email, and phone come through correctly.

If the pasted text is jumbled, the parser will likely struggle too. Two-column layouts and text inside graphics are the usual culprits.

Write for the human after the ATS

Getting past the ATS only gets your resume in front of a person, who will spend well under a minute on the first read. Clear structure, strong bullets, and a single focused page matter more than any keyword trick. Our guides on bullet points and resume length cover what that person is looking for.

dotresume is totally free, with no account required, and its PDFs are built with clean, parseable text from the start.