Quick check
Guess first, no penalty. You apply online with your resume (the document that lists your work and skills). What happens to it first?
An applicant tracking system, or ATS, is software employers use to collect, store and manage job applications. Common ones are Workday, Greenhouse, Lever, iCIMS, Oracle Taleo and SAP SuccessFactors.
When you apply through a careers page, your file goes into the ATS. Recruiters work inside it all day: searching, filtering, reading shortlists and moving candidates through stages.
It reads fields, not pages
The ATS parses your resume: it splits the text into fields like name, email, phone, job titles, employers, dates, education and skills.
Parsing is not perfect. With an unusual layout, the system may put your job title under the wrong employer, or drop your phone number entirely. Keep the structure plain:
| Do this | Avoid this |
|---|---|
| Single column layout | Two column layouts |
| Standard headings: Experience, Education, Skills | Creative headings like "My Story" |
| Contact details in the body of the page | Contact details in the page header or footer |
| Plain text for everything important | Important text inside images, text boxes or tables |
| Common fonts | Decorative or unusual fonts |
| .docx or a text-based PDF | Scanned PDFs and image exports |
Here's a section that parses cleanly:
EXPERIENCE
Customer Support Specialist
RetailCo, Bengaluru
January 2022 to present
- Answered about 60 customer emails and chats a day
- Cut repeat tickets by 15% by rewriting 20 help articles
- Trained 4 new team members on the ticketing system
SKILLS
Customer support, Zendesk, ticketing systems, written communicationFill the gaps
Why does that section parse cleanly?
Why it works
It uses and . Every detail is , so the job title, employer and dates each land in the right field.
Try it
Your steps, about 2 minutes
- 1.Open your resume and check it against the table. Mark every "Avoid this" item you find.2 min