How to Get Your Resume Past ATS: A Practical Guide

Let me reframe something right away. You are not trying to "beat" the ATS. You are not gaming a system or exploiting a loophole.

You are just formatting your resume so software can read it correctly.

That is it. ATS is not your enemy. It is a tool that organizes applications. Your goal is to make sure it can read yours without problems. When it can, your resume gets properly scored and ranked. When it cannot, you get filtered out regardless of your qualifications.

Here is exactly how to make that happen.

Stop Thinking About "Beating" the System

The whole "beat the ATS" framing is wrong. It leads people to do weird things like hiding keywords in white text or stuffing their resume with terms they saw online.

ATS is doing something simple: reading your resume and extracting information. It looks for your contact details, work history, education, and skills. Then it checks how well those match the job requirements.

If your resume is well-formatted and relevant to the job, it passes. That is the whole secret.

The people who struggle with ATS usually have one of two problems: their resume formatting confuses the parser, or their resume content does not match what the job requires. Both are fixable.

File Format: PDF vs DOCX

This question comes up constantly, and the answer is simpler than most people make it.

DOCX is the safest choice for ATS. Almost every system can parse Word documents reliably. If the job application does not specify a format, go with DOCX.

PDF works with most modern ATS platforms. Greenhouse, Lever, and Workday all handle PDFs well. But some older systems, particularly Taleo and some government portals, can struggle with PDFs, especially if the PDF was created from a design tool like Canva or InDesign.

Here is the key distinction: a PDF created by saving a Word document as PDF is usually fine. A PDF created in a graphic design tool often is not. Design tools sometimes turn text into images or use layers that confuse the parser.

If the application specifically asks for a PDF, submit a PDF. If it asks for DOCX, submit DOCX. If it does not specify, go with DOCX to be safe.

Never submit a .pages file, a .jpg, or a .png. This sounds obvious, but it happens more than you would think.

Layout: Keep It Simple

ATS parsers read documents in a linear, top-to-bottom flow. They expect text to flow like a book, left to right, top to bottom, one thing after another.

Anything that breaks this flow causes problems.

Use a Single Column

Two-column layouts look nice to humans. But ATS often reads them incorrectly. It might read across both columns simultaneously, mixing your work experience with your skills section. The result is garbled data that makes no sense.

Stick to one column. It is not as visually interesting, but it works every time.

No Tables

Tables are one of the biggest ATS killers. People use them to create clean layouts, skills on the left, proficiency on the right. But many ATS systems ignore table structures entirely. They dump all the cell contents together in a random order.

If you have your resume in a table layout right now, remove the tables. Just use regular text with clear section headings.

No Text Boxes

Text boxes in Word are floating objects. ATS parsers often skip them entirely. If your name and contact information are in a text box at the top of your resume, the system might not capture them at all.

Put everything in the main document body. No floating elements.

No Headers or Footers for Key Info

Some people put their name or contact info in the document header. Many ATS systems do not read document headers and footers. Your name, phone number, and email should be in the main body of the document.

No Graphics or Images

Logos, headshots, icons, skill bar graphs, infographics, none of these get read by ATS. They are invisible to the parser. Worse, they can displace text and cause formatting issues.

Remove all graphics. If you want to show skill proficiency, just list the skills as text.

Keywords: How to Find Them

We cover this in detail in our guide to the best ATS-friendly resume format.

Keywords are the words and phrases the ATS uses to match your resume to the job. Finding the right ones is not hard. The job description gives them to you.

Read the Job Description Carefully

Open the job description. Read it twice. Look for:

• Required skills, these are the most important keywords
• Preferred skills, include these if you have them
• Job title variations, the title they use might differ from yours
• Tools and technologies, specific software, platforms, methodologies
• Certifications, if they mention PMP, CPA, AWS Certified, etc.
• Industry terms, jargon specific to that field

Match the Exact Phrasing

If the job description says "project management," use "project management", not "managing projects" or "PM." ATS keyword matching is often literal. Some systems understand synonyms, but many do not.

If they say "Python," write "Python." Not "python scripting" (unless that appears too). Mirror their language.

Do Not Overdo It

Use each keyword naturally in context. Write it into your experience bullets, your summary, or your skills section. If you cannot work a keyword into a truthful sentence about your experience, do not force it. Listing skills you do not have will only cause problems in the interview.

A Practical Method

Here is a simple process:

1. Copy the job description into a text document.
2. Highlight every specific skill, tool, qualification, and requirement.
3. Make a list of those keywords.
4. Check your resume. How many of those keywords appear?
5. Add the missing ones where they honestly fit.

This takes about 15 minutes per application. It is the single most impactful thing you can do for your ATS score.

Tools like Sira automate this process. You paste your resume and the job description, and it shows you which keywords you are missing and where to add them.

Section Headings the ATS Expects

ATS systems are trained to recognize standard section headings. Use them.

• Contact Information (or just put it at the top without a heading)
• Summary or Professional Summary
• Work Experience or Experience or Professional Experience
• Education
• Skills or Technical Skills
• Certifications (if applicable)

Do not get creative. "Where I Have Made an Impact" is not a good replacement for "Work Experience." "My Toolbox" is not a replacement for "Skills." The ATS does not understand clever headings. It looks for standard ones.

Some people use "Employment History" instead of "Work Experience." That is fine, it is a recognized variation. Just avoid anything unusual.

Font Choices That Work

This is simple. Use a standard, widely available font.

Safe choices: Arial, Calibri, Garamond, Times New Roman, Helvetica, Georgia, Cambria.

Avoid: Custom fonts, decorative fonts, script fonts, or anything you downloaded from a font website. If the ATS system does not have the font installed, it substitutes a default, and that substitution can break your layout.

Font size should be 10-12 points for body text and 12-14 for headings. Do not go below 10. It is hard to read and some parsers struggle with very small text.

What NOT to Do

Here is a quick list of things that cause ATS problems:

Do not use graphics or icons. Skill bars, pie charts, star ratings, company logos, the ATS ignores them all.

Do not use two columns. Stick to a single-column layout.

Do not put text in images. Some design templates bake text into graphic elements. The ATS cannot read it.

Do not use unusual characters. Fancy bullets, decorative dividers, and special symbols can cause parsing errors. Use standard bullet points.

Do not submit a scanned document. A scanned PDF is just an image. There is no text for the ATS to read.

Do not hide keywords. Some people write keywords in white text on a white background, thinking the ATS will read them but humans will not see them. Recruiters know this trick. Many ATS systems flag it. It can get your application rejected immediately.

Do not use "creative" resume templates from Canva or Etsy. Most of them look great but are ATS disasters. The multi-column layouts, text boxes, and graphic elements make them nearly impossible for parsers to read correctly.

The Quick Test

Here is the fastest way to check if your resume is ATS-friendly:

1. Open your resume file.
2. Select all the text (Ctrl+A or Cmd+A).
3. Copy it (Ctrl+C or Cmd+C).
4. Open a plain text editor (Notepad on Windows, TextEdit in plain text mode on Mac).
5. Paste (Ctrl+V or Cmd+V).

Now look at what you pasted. Is it readable? Does the information flow in the right order? Is your name at the top? Does your work experience make sense?

If yes, an ATS can probably read your resume.

If the text is jumbled, out of order, missing sections, or full of random characters, you have formatting problems that need fixing.

This test takes 30 seconds and tells you more about your ATS compatibility than any online "ATS score checker."

Putting It All Together

Here is your checklist before submitting any application:

• Resume is in DOCX format (or PDF if specifically requested)
• Single column layout
• No tables, text boxes, headers/footers for key info, or graphics
• Standard section headings (Experience, Education, Skills)
• Standard font (Arial, Calibri, etc.) at 10-12pt
• Keywords from the job description are included naturally
• The plain text test produces readable output
• File name is professional (FirstName-LastName-Resume.docx)

Follow this list for every application. It adds maybe 20 minutes to your process. But it means your resume actually reaches a human instead of disappearing into a database.

The goal was never to "beat" anything. It was just to be readable. Now you know how.

Ready to improve your resume? Upload your resume to Sira and get it checked for ATS compatibility.

About Sira: Sira is a resume improvement tool that compares your resume against job descriptions, highlights missing keywords, and helps you format your application for maximum ATS compatibility.