There is more nonsense written about applicant tracking systems than about any other part of job hunting. “Beat the ATS”, “75% of CVs are rejected by robots”, hidden white keywords, special fonts. Most of it is sold by people with a CV template to sell. Here is what the software actually does, from the side of the desk that uses it, and the handful of things that genuinely matter.
What an ATS actually does
An applicant tracking system is a database. When you apply, it stores your CV, tries to parse it into fields (name, contact details, employers, titles, dates, skills), and lets recruiters search, filter and sort the applicants. Workday, Greenhouse, Lever, Taleo, SuccessFactors and the rest all do roughly this.
What it does not do, in almost all UK hiring: automatically reject CVs. A recruiter decides. What the software decides is whether your CV shows up when that recruiter searches for “head of operations” within 30 miles of Birmingham with “SAP” somewhere in the text. If your CV parsed badly, it may not. That is the whole problem, and it is a parsing problem, not a judgement.
What actually matters
1. Layout the parser can read
Single column. No tables for layout. No text boxes. No sidebars. Contact details in the body of the document, not in the header or footer, which many parsers skip. Standard section headings (“Experience”, “Education”, “Skills”) so the parser knows what it is looking at. This one item fixes most ATS problems, and it is the same layout a human reads fastest.
2. The actual job title and the actual terms
Recruiters search for the words in their own job advert. If the role is “Management Accountant” and your CV says “Finance Business Partner” throughout, you will not appear in the search even if the jobs are identical. Use the market title for what you do, and the specific names of tools, systems, qualifications and methods the advert asks for, in plain text where they were used.
3. Dates the parser can understand
Month and year, consistently: “Mar 2022 to Present”. Year-only dates and odd formats confuse tenure calculations and, more to the point, make recruiters suspicious.
4. A file type that parses
A text-based PDF or a Word document. Not a PDF exported from a design tool as an image, not Pages, not Google Docs links. If you can select the text in the PDF with your cursor, it will parse.
Prefer to have it written? Every CV we write is single column, plain text and built to parse, because that is what our writers wanted on their own desks. See packages.
What is a myth
- “The ATS rejects 75% of CVs.” It stores 100% of them. Humans reject them, usually for the reasons in this guide.
- “You need an ATS score of 80%.” Online “ATS checkers” invent a score by counting keyword matches. Real systems do not score CVs that way; recruiters search and filter.
- “Hide keywords in white text.” Parsers strip formatting, so the text shows up in the recruiter’s view as a block of nonsense. It gets a CV rejected by the human.
- “Only certain fonts are ATS-safe.” Any standard typeface parses. The font advice is about readability for humans, which matters more.
- “Keyword density matters.” A skills section stuffed with every term from the advert reads as padding to the recruiter who opens the file. Use each term once, where it was actually used.
- “Graphics and logos break the ATS.” They are ignored. They do waste space a human could have read.
A simple ATS check
Open your CV, select all, copy, and paste it into a plain text editor (Notepad or TextEdit in plain-text mode). Read what comes out. If the order makes sense, the contact details are there, and each role’s title, employer and dates are on recognisable lines, it will parse. If columns have interleaved, the contact details have vanished or the dates have come adrift from the roles, fix the layout. That is the whole test, and it is free.
Frequently asked questions
Should I use a two-column CV?
No. It is the single most common cause of bad parsing, and it is slower for humans to read as well.
Do keywords need to match the advert exactly?
For job titles, qualifications and named tools, yes, because recruiters search for those exact strings. For everything else, write naturally.
PDF or Word for ATS?
Either, as long as the PDF is text-based. Follow the application’s instruction if it gives one; otherwise PDF.
Want it checked by someone who has used these systems to hire? See packages, or read the full UK CV guide.