Many employers use an applicant tracking system (ATS) to collect and organise applications. Contrary to popular myth, most systems do not automatically reject resumes; they parse your document into fields so recruiters can search and filter. The goal is simply to make your resume easy to parse and easy to match.
Use a simple structure
- One column, standard fonts, and no text inside images.
- Standard headings: Summary, Experience, Education, Skills.
- Avoid tables, text boxes, headers and footers for important content.
- Save as a text-based PDF or Word document, as requested in the posting.
Match language, honestly
Read the job description and note the skills, tools and responsibilities mentioned repeatedly. Where they truthfully describe your experience, use the same terms, for example “secondary sales reporting” rather than a company-specific nickname. Do not add skills you do not have; interviews will expose them.
Show results, not duties
Start bullets with action verbs and add numbers where you honestly can: team size, volumes, time saved, accuracy or targets met. Compare “Responsible for reports” with “Prepared weekly performance reports for senior management across five regions”.
Tailor each application
A few minutes adjusting your summary and the top bullets of your most relevant role usually matters more than a perfectly formatted generic resume.
Keep it a reasonable length
One to two pages is typical. Prioritise the most recent and relevant ten years, and trim older roles to a line or two.
Keywords: a practical method
You do not need special software to find the words that matter. Work through the posting in four steps.
- Copy the job description and highlight every skill, tool, qualification and responsibility.
- Note anything that appears more than once, or appears in the requirements section. These are likely to matter most.
- Sort them into three groups: terms you can use exactly, terms you have under another name, and terms you honestly do not have.
- Work the first two groups into your summary, skills and most relevant bullets. Leave the third group out, or address it truthfully in your cover letter.
Spell out abbreviations at least once, such as "Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)", because a recruiter may search for either form.
Before and after: rewriting bullets
The examples below are illustrative. Only use figures that are true for you.
| Weak | Stronger |
|---|---|
| Responsible for sales data | Validated weekly secondary sales data from 12 distributors before publishing to senior management |
| Helped with meetings | Prepared minutes for monthly commercial reviews and tracked 30+ action items to completion |
| Worked on projects | Coordinated a product launch across marketing, sales and retail partners, delivering on the agreed date |
A useful pattern is: action verb, what you did, scale or context, and the result. If you have no number, describe the scope instead, such as the regions, teams or stakeholders involved.
A quick parsing test
Here is a simple check you can run in a minute. Open your PDF, select all the text, copy it and paste it into a plain text editor. If the words come out in a sensible order, a parser will probably manage too. If your dates are separated from your job titles, columns are mixed together, or some text will not select at all, simplify the layout.
PDF or Word?
Follow the posting if it specifies a format. If it does not, a text-based PDF is a good default because the layout stays fixed. A PDF exported from a design tool as an image is not text-based, however, and cannot be read properly by a parser. Keep an editable copy so that tailoring your resume for each role stays quick.
Details that are often overlooked
- Dates. Use one consistent format, such as "Jan 2022 – Mar 2024", so that your history can be read correctly.
- Contact details. Put them in the main body of the page rather than a document header, which some parsers skip.
- Job titles. If your internal title is unusual, add the common equivalent in brackets, as long as it is accurate.
- File name. Use something clear such as "Firstname-Lastname-Resume.pdf".
What not to do
Avoid copying the whole job description into your resume or hiding keywords in white text. Recruiters read the extracted text, so these tricks are often visible, and they damage trust. A match score is only a guide. The real goal is a resume that a person can read in under a minute and see why you fit.
Check before you apply
For a detailed walkthrough, see how to check your resume against a job description.
Compare your resume with the job description. The ATS Resume Checker highlights missing keywords and structure problems, and the Resume Builder creates a clean single-column PDF you can edit as needed.
This article is general information, not professional advice. See the disclaimer.