9 Tips for Getting Your Resume Past The Applicant Tracking System (ATS)

To get past an Applicant Tracking System, match the exact language of the job posting in your resume, use a simple single-column layout with standard section headings, and save the file as a .docx or text-based PDF. Roughly 99% of Fortune 500 companies screen resumes through an ATS, so the resume that wins the keyword match before a human ever opens it is the one that gets the interview.

This guide walks through what an ATS actually does with your resume, the nine specific changes that make the biggest difference, and how to test the file before you hit submit.

Also read: Complete guide on how to write a resume

What is an Applicant Tracking System?

An Applicant Tracking System (ATS) is software employers use to collect, parse, and rank job applications before a recruiter reads them. The system extracts the text from your resume, sorts the information into fields (name, contact, work history, skills, education), and scores the application against the keywords and qualifications in the job posting.

Around 99% of Fortune 500 companies and roughly 70% of large employers run resumes through an ATS, according to Jobscan’s annual usage report. Common platforms include Workday, Greenhouse, Lever, Taleo, iCIMS, and SmartRecruiters. They behave differently from one another, but the parsing rules below apply across all of them.

So when someone says “applicant tracking system meaning,” the short version is this: a database plus a parser plus a ranking layer. The parser turns your PDF or Word file into structured text. The ranking layer compares that text to the job description. Your resume earns a higher rank when the parser reads it cleanly and finds the words the employer set as priorities.

How does an ATS screen your resume?

The recruiter writes the job description and feeds it into the ATS. The system pulls out skills, job titles, certifications, and qualifications as the criteria.

Every incoming resume gets parsed into structured fields. The ATS reads the document top to bottom, looks for standard section headings (Experience, Education, Skills), and pulls dates, employers, titles, and bullet content into those buckets. It also counts how often priority keywords appear and where they sit.

The resume gets a score. A recruiter sees the top-ranked candidates first, sometimes filtered with a minimum threshold below which resumes don’t surface at all.

If your file confuses the parser, your real experience gets logged as missing. A skill listed inside a sidebar text box might never enter the database. A job title hidden inside a graphic image counts as zero matches. The fix is rarely a better career; it’s a cleaner file.

How do I make my resume pass an ATS scan: 9 tips

1. Pull keywords directly from the job posting

The single highest-impact change you can make is matching the exact terminology in the job description. The ATS scores you on those exact phrases, not on synonyms it might recognize.

Read the posting twice. The first pass for the role overall, the second pass with a highlighter. Mark every hard skill, software name, certification, methodology, and qualifying phrase. Note the exact job title in the heading and the action verbs in the bullets.

Here’s how to do it with a real posting:

“We’re hiring a Senior Product Marketing Manager to lead go-to-market strategy for our B2B SaaS platform. You’ll own positioning, messaging, competitive analysis, and sales enablement. Requirements: 5+ years in product marketing, experience with Salesforce and HubSpot, strong copywriting skills, and a track record of launching new products.”

The keywords to lift into your resume verbatim: Senior Product Marketing Manager, go-to-market strategy, B2B SaaS, positioning, messaging, competitive analysis, sales enablement, product marketing, Salesforce, HubSpot, copywriting, launching new products.

Now weave those words into your work experience, summary, and skills section in places where they’re truthful for you. Don’t invent experience you don’t have. If a keyword doesn’t apply, skip it. The goal is matched-up real experience, not stuffed text.

One small detail that matters: write out acronyms with the full term, like “Search Engine Optimization (SEO)” or “Customer Relationship Management (CRM).” Some parsers index only one form, and writing both covers either case.

2. Use the exact job title from the posting

Job title is one of the most heavily weighted fields in most ATS scoring. If the posting says “Account Executive” and your current title is “Sales Specialist,” the parser may rank you well below candidates who use the matching title even when your day-to-day work is identical.

You have two clean ways to handle this:

The cleaner option is to add a target title line under your name, like this:

Maria Chen Account Executive | SaaS Sales | Pipeline Growth

The second is to mirror the posting’s title in your most recent role when your actual title is similar enough that it isn’t misrepresentation. “Sales Specialist (Account Executive)” or simply listing it as “Account Executive” if that’s a fair description of your scope.

Never invent a title that doesn’t reflect your actual work. Recruiters check references and LinkedIn, and a fabricated title kills the application later in the process.

3. Stick to standard section headings

The ATS uses headings to figure out which part of your resume it’s reading. “Professional Experience,” “Work Experience,” and “Employment History” all parse cleanly. “My Journey,” “Where I’ve Been,” or “Career Adventures” do not.

Use these labels, in some order close to this:

• Contact Information (top of page, in the body, not in a header or footer)
• Professional Summary or Summary of Qualifications
• Skills
• Work Experience (or Professional Experience)
• Education
• Certifications (if relevant)

A creative heading might delight a human reader who reaches your resume. The problem is that the human reader is the second stage. Skip the originality at this layer and earn the creativity points in your portfolio, cover letter, or interview.

4. Pick the right resume format for ATS

A few formatting choices reliably break ATS parsing. Avoid all of these:

Element	Why it fails
Tables	Many parsers read row by row across the whole page, scrambling the order of your content
Multi-column layouts	The parser may read top to bottom in column one, then column two, and lose context
Text inside headers or footers	Some ATS skip these regions entirely
Images and logos	An ATS cannot read text inside an image, including your name if it’s stylized
Text boxes and sidebars	Often parsed out of order or dropped entirely
Fancy bullets (★, ➤, ◆)	Some replace as junk characters; stick to •, ◦, ▪, or a hyphen
Non-standard fonts	Substitute with a system font that may or may not parse correctly

The safest applicant tracking system resume format is a single-column layout with simple section headings, bullet points, and a standard font like Arial, Calibri, Helvetica, Georgia, or Times New Roman at 10 to 12 point. Put your name and contact details in the body of the document, not the header region.

Reverse-chronological order works best for most candidates. The most recent role goes first, then backward through your work history. ATS systems parse this structure most reliably, and it’s what hiring managers expect.

ATS-friendly resume templates can be used as a guide for the resume layout. Here are a few great ATS resume templates for Google Docs and Word that are not boring and you can download for free:

5. Choose the right file format

Default to a .docx resume file when the posting doesn’t specify a format. It’s the most universally compatible across ATS platforms.

PDF works in modern systems as long as the PDF was generated from a text editor (Word, Google Docs, Pages) rather than scanned from paper or saved from a design tool like Canva or InDesign with text rendered as outlines. A text-based PDF parses cleanly in Workday, Greenhouse, Lever, and most other modern platforms. A scanned or image-based PDF parses as gibberish.

When the application portal asks for a specific format, follow that instruction exactly. If the posting says “submit your resume as a PDF,” send a PDF. If it says “Word document,” send a .docx. Compliance with stated instructions is itself something some hiring teams track.

Never submit a .pages file (Apple-only), an .rtf, an .odt, or a Google Docs link. Some ATS won’t accept the file at all, and the application will fail silently.

6. Include a skills section with keywords

A standalone Skills section is the cleanest place to put hard skills, software names, certifications, and tools that don’t fit naturally inside your experience bullets. The ATS reads it as a high-density keyword block, and a human reviewer uses it as a fast scan.

Group skills into 2 or 3 categories when you have enough to justify it. Here’s what a well-built skills section looks like for the product marketing role above:

Skills
Marketing strategy: Go-to-market strategy, positioning, messaging, competitive analysis, product launches
Tools: Salesforce, HubSpot, Marketo, Google Analytics, Figma, Notion
Specialties: B2B SaaS, sales enablement, copywriting, content marketing

Why this works: every priority keyword from the original posting is now in one parseable block. The parser indexes them. The human reads them in three seconds. Categories give the section structure without using a table or columns.

For a Summary of Qualifications block at the top, write 3 to 5 sentences or bullets that name your years of experience, your target role, two or three signature skills, and one notable result. That paragraph alone often carries half the keyword load for the resume.

7. Tailor the resume for every application

The same resume sent to ten different jobs will underperform a tailored resume sent to one. This is the rule no shortcut beats.

Tailoring doesn’t mean rewriting from scratch. It means swapping in the language of each specific posting. For every application:

1. Read the new posting and pull the priority keywords.
2. Update your Summary so the first sentence matches the role you’re applying for.
3. Edit your Skills section so the high-priority terms for this job sit at the front.
4. Rewrite 2 or 3 bullets in your most recent role to mirror the posting’s language and emphasize the relevant work.
5. Confirm the job title line (under your name) matches the target role.

Twenty minutes of editing per application beats sending the same generic file to twenty roles. The math works because tailored resumes interview at a much higher rate than spray-and-pray submissions.

8. Show metrics and specifics in every bullet

ATS systems score keyword matches, but human recruiters score what comes after the keywords. A bullet that reads “Responsible for sales” parses fine and reads like nothing. A bullet that reads “Grew Northeast territory revenue from $1.2M to $2.8M in 18 months by building out 14 new channel partners” parses just as well and reads like a hire.

Use this pattern for every bullet that describes a result:

• Strong verb (Built, Led, Grew, Cut, Shipped, Launched)
• What you did
• A number (dollars, percentages, headcount, time saved, volume)
• The context that makes the number meaningful

Compare:

❌ “Managed social media accounts and grew followers.”

✅ “Grew Instagram from 8K to 47K followers in 9 months through a weekly creator collaboration program, lifting referral traffic to the site by 34%.”

Both bullets contain the keyword “Instagram” and “social media.” Only one earns the interview.

A specific note for career changers, recent graduates, and people returning to work after a gap: the metrics rule still applies. Pull numbers from coursework, volunteer roles, freelance projects, side businesses, or your previous career. “Coordinated logistics for a 200-person community event on a $4,000 budget” works as a bullet on a resume for an operations role even if you’ve never had an operations title.

How to test your resume for ATS compatibility

A clean ATS compatibility check takes about 10 minutes:

1. Copy and paste check. Open the file, select all, paste into Notepad or TextEdit. The text should appear in the correct order, with no scrambled sections.
2. Headings check. Confirm your section labels are standard: Summary, Skills, Experience, Education, Certifications.
3. Keyword check. Open the job posting in one window and your resume in another. Highlight the keywords from the posting that also appear in your resume. Aim for at least 70% of the priority keywords reflected somewhere in the document.
4. Read-aloud check. Read every bullet out loud. If a bullet doesn’t include a result, a number, or a concrete deliverable, rewrite it.

The resume that passes these four checks parses cleanly, matches the posting’s language, and reads like a strong candidate when a human finally opens it.

What to do after your resume is ATS-ready

A clean, keyword-matched resume is the entry ticket, not the prize. Two moves multiply its effect.

Reach out to a real person at the company. A referral from inside the company pulls your application out of the ATS queue and onto a recruiter’s desk, often with a short note attached. LinkedIn search by company name plus the relevant team usually surfaces a name in under five minutes. A short, specific message asking for advice or a referral works better than a generic ask.

Keep a polished traditional resume ready for in-person events, job fairs, and interviews. The version optimized for parsing is rarely the most beautiful version, so it’s worth having a designed copy for the human-facing moments while keeping the clean version reserved for online submission.

Frequently asked questions

What is an Applicant Tracking System?

An Applicant Tracking System (ATS) is recruitment software that collects, parses, and ranks job applications before a recruiter reads them. The system extracts text from each resume, sorts the content into structured fields, and scores it against the keywords and qualifications in the job posting. Around 99% of Fortune 500 companies use one.

What is the best resume format for an ATS?

The best applicant tracking system resume format is a single-column layout with standard section headings (Summary, Skills, Experience, Education), bullet points, and a system font like Arial, Calibri, or Times New Roman at 10 to 12 point. Save it as a .docx file unless the posting specifies a PDF. Avoid tables, columns, images, headers and footers, and text boxes.

How do I test my resume against an Applicant Tracking System?

Quick test: copy and paste the resume into a plain text editor and check the text appears in the right order. Then compare it side by side with the job posting and confirm 70% or more of the priority keywords are present.

Is PDF or Word better for ATS?

Both work in modern ATS platforms when the file is text-based. Default to .docx when the posting doesn’t specify, because it’s the most universally compatible. PDF is fine when it’s generated from Word, Google Docs, or Pages, but a scanned PDF or one exported from a design tool with text as outlines will parse as gibberish. Always follow the posting’s stated format requirement.

How many keywords should I use in my resume?

Aim to reflect 70% or more of the priority keywords from the job posting somewhere in your resume, weighted toward your Summary, Skills section, and most recent role bullets. Don’t keyword-stuff. Each keyword should sit in a sentence that reads naturally and reflects real experience. If a posting keyword doesn’t apply to you, leave it out.

Why isn’t my resume getting responses even though I’m qualified?

The three most common causes are a formatting issue that breaks parsing (tables, columns, images, or text inside headers), a keyword mismatch with the specific posting (using “Sales Specialist” when the posting says “Account Executive”), or sending the same generic resume to every role instead of tailoring per application.