layiq
/la·yiq/adjective
worthy; deserving; fitting; suitable.
A role, opportunity, or path that merits attention, time, and pursuit.
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ATS-friendly résumé: what to change and what to skip
An ATS-friendly résumé is one whose text comes out of the file complete and in the right order. Applicant tracking systems (ATS) read résumés into fields that recruiters search, and the documented ways to break that are image-only pages, unsupported or protected files and unrecognized characters, plus layouts employers advise against: columns, tables, text boxes and details only in the page header.
On this page
This guide is about making your file readable. Whether an ATS rejects résumés is a separate question, and the evidence is in Does an ATS reject your résumé?. To check your own file privately, use LAYIQ’s free ATS résumé checker, which runs in your browser.
The short version
- “ATS-friendly” means readable, not approved. An ATS stores applications, reads your résumé into fields such as name, jobs and education, and lets recruiters search them.1 A clean file helps that reading go right.
- The documented problems are narrow. An ATS or parsing vendor names a page that is only an image, a file type the system does not take, a password-protected file and characters the parser does not recognize.623
- Employer advice goes further. Roche tells candidates to avoid columns, tables, text boxes, images, headers and footers, uncommon section headings and hard-to-parse fonts.1 That is one employer’s guidance, not a rule every ATS follows.
- Follow the application on file type. PDF and DOCX appear on all three vendor file lists we read, but the lists and size limits differ.256
- Ignore the “ATS score” and the 75% claim. We could not find a study or method behind the 75% figure, and an “ATS score” from a website is that website’s own number.
- Check your file in a minute. Paste its text into a plain-text editor and look at the order, or run it through the free checker.
What an ATS does with your résumé
Roche’s careers FAQ describes résumé parsing as “the automatic extraction, storage, and analysis of resume data,” after which the information “is then able to be categorized, sorted, and searched.”1 Roche says it uses the parsed data to help candidates complete the application and to suggest skills and job matches, and that recruiters may search it, but “will review each applicant and their attached CV.”1
Parsing is software and it makes mistakes. Recruiterflow’s help center says résumé parsing “relies on machine learning, and even the best models miss edge cases.”6 That is why Roche tells candidates to check that the application form’s fields were filled correctly from their résumé.1
Automatic rejection is a separate matter. Greenhouse’s Auto-Reject rule “uses custom application questions to screen and reject candidates based on their responses,” for essential criteria such as license or location requirements, and it is offered on some subscription tiers only.4 In a small vendor-run study, 23 of 25 recruiters said their systems do not auto-reject résumés for formatting, content or design.8 The details are in our guide on whether an ATS rejects your résumé.
The formatting rules, ranked by how well they are documented
The table separates two kinds of evidence. Vendor documentation means a company that makes ATS or parsing software says it in its help center. Employer guidance means an employer that uses an ATS tells its candidates something about its own system.
| Choice | What can go wrong | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| A scan, a photo or an image-only PDF | There is no text for a parser to read. Textkernel, a parsing vendor, sells text recognition (OCR) for scans and photos, but you cannot count on an employer having it.7 | Vendor documentation. Recruiterflow says its parser cannot read an image or a “scanned image without a text layer.”6 |
| A file type or protection the system does not take | The file may not import. Greenhouse takes .doc, .docx, .pdf, .rtf and .txt; Workable takes .pdf, .doc, .docx, .rtf, .html and .odt; Recruiterflow cannot parse password-protected files.256 | Vendor documentation. |
| Unusual characters, symbols or icon fonts | Greenhouse lists characters its text parsing technology does not recognize as a reason a résumé may not import correctly.3 | Vendor documentation. |
| Columns or a sidebar | Roche says some systems “read columns straight across rather than reading column one top to bottom,” which mixes lines from both sides.1 | Employer guidance. |
| Tables, text boxes, logos, images and graphics | Roche tells candidates to avoid all of them when designing a résumé for an ATS.1 | Employer guidance. |
| Contact details only in the page header or footer | Roche says information in the header and footer “sometimes gets dropped by the ATS completely.”1 | Employer guidance. |
| Creative section headings | Roche suggests conventional labels such as “Education,” “Work Experience” and “Technical Skills” so the ATS knows how to sort your information.1 | Employer guidance. |
| A link hiding an important word | Roche says some systems keep only the URL and drop the words you linked from.1 | Employer guidance. |
| A skills-first (functional) layout | Roche says ATSs are programmed to prefer chronological and combination formats, and that a functional résumé can confuse the software.1 | Employer guidance. |
Plenty is safe to keep. Roche lists bold, italics, underlined headings and URLs, color and standard round or square bullets as elements you can use “without tripping up an ATS,” with one caution: an ATS returns all text in the same color, so color should not carry meaning.1
Fonts, symbols and bullets
The only font advice we found comes from the same employer. Roche says to stick to a universal font such as Arial, Helvetica, Times New Roman, Garamond, Georgia or Cambria and to avoid fonts you need to download, which the ATS may have trouble parsing.1 No vendor documentation we read names a list of safe fonts, so treat this as sensible advice, not a documented limit. LAYIQ’s checker treats font count and small type the same way: a flag from convention, not from documentation.
Symbols are the better-documented risk. Greenhouse names unrecognized characters as a cause of failed imports,3 so write “Phone” and “Email” as words instead of icons, and use a standard bullet instead of an arrow, check mark or emoji.
PDF or Word, and the file itself
Use the file type the application asks for. If it lets you choose, PDF and DOCX are the safest pair: they are on the Greenhouse, Workable and Recruiterflow lists.256 Beyond that the lists differ, and so do size limits: Greenhouse allows uploads up to 100 MB, while Workable caps a résumé at 5 MB.25
Which of the two parses better is not settled. Roche says PDFs are best at keeping your format intact but that “the .docx format is the most accurately parsed by ATSs.”1 That is one employer’s experience with its own systems. A practical rule: export a PDF from the program you wrote the résumé in, so the text stays selectable, or upload the DOCX. Do not scan or photograph a printout, and do not password-protect the file.6 Name the file so a recruiter knows whose it is, such as FirstName-LastName-Resume.pdf; that is a convention, not a parsing rule.
Headings, order and contact details
- Put your name and contact details in the body of the first page, not in the page header or a text box.1
- Use plain section headings such as Experience, Education and Skills.1
- List jobs most recent first, with the title, employer and dates together. Roche says an ATS reads left to right and top to bottom, and advises starting the work history with your most recent or current position.1
- Write dates one way throughout and write link addresses out in full. The second is Roche’s advice;1 the first is our own.
Keywords: use the posting’s words for what you have done
Recruiters can search a candidate database by keyword, “usually whatever skills, qualifications, experience, or qualities are most important for performing the job,” and Roche suggests looking for the hard skills a posting repeats and lists near the top.1 Use those words where they describe something you have actually done. Roche also notes that an ATS recognizes that a skill is present, but interpreting its strength and value “is still for people to do,” so show the context.1
Do not stuff keywords or hide them in white text. Roche says an ATS returns all text in the same color, so white text still comes through as ordinary text,1 and LAYIQ’s checker flags hidden text in DOCX files. Does an ATS reject your résumé? covers why it backfires.
What to ignore
| Advice you will see | What the evidence shows |
|---|---|
| “75% of résumés are rejected by an ATS.” | We could not find a study, sample or method behind the figure. Enhancv, a company that sells résumé tools, says it circulates “usually without a single source or piece of data to back it up.”8 Treat it as unsupported. |
| “A designed template gets you rejected.” | In that small vendor-run study, 23 of 25 recruiters said their systems do not auto-reject for formatting, content or design.8 Layout can still scramble what a parser reads, as the table above shows, but that is a different problem from rejection. |
| “You need a high ATS score.” | Some systems show recruiters a match score of their own: 44% of the 25 recruiters said their system includes an AI or “fit” score, and 36% said they use it only as a guide and check candidates by hand.8 That is an employer’s tool scoring against one job. A website’s “ATS score” is that website’s own formula, and LAYIQ’s checker gives none. |
| “You need a special ATS template.” | Roche says ATS-friendly résumé formatting is “very similar to recruiter-friendly resume formatting.”1 |
| “An ATS cannot read PDFs.” | Greenhouse, Workable and Recruiterflow all list PDF as accepted.256 The documented problem is a PDF with no text layer.6 |
How to check your own résumé
- Select and paste. Open your file, select all the text, copy it and paste it into a plain-text editor. If nothing selects, the page is an image. If the text arrives scrambled or incomplete, a parser may read it the same way.
- Look at the order. Check that your name, contact details, job titles, employers and dates come out in the order you wrote them, with each job’s lines together.
- Run the free checker. LAYIQ’s ATS résumé checker reads a PDF or DOCX inside your browser tab, and nothing is uploaded or saved. It shows the plain text a straightforward parser takes from the file, the fields it can find, and checks with a fix for each problem. It gives no score.
- Fix one thing at a time and check again, so you can see which change did what.
- Check the application form. When an employer’s form fills itself in from your résumé, review every field before you submit.1
How LAYIQ’s checker behaved in our own test
In October 2026 we ran the checker over 705 résumé files that we generated ourselves from invented people and many layouts, using Chromium print-to-PDF, Word-style DOCX files, and LibreOffice and Ghostscript copies. The checker flagged every sidebar, table and two-column PDF for columns (30 of 30: 21 as a fix and 9 as a caution), and it flagged none of the 441 PDFs outside those layouts. We also ran 20 sample files from a single producer, all in one column, which could not show column or table problems, and we had no real Word, Google Docs, Canva or Pages exports.
What that test does and does not show
It shows how LAYIQ’s own browser-only reader behaved on files we made. It does not show what Greenhouse, Workday, Lever or any other named ATS does with a layout, and it says nothing about whether an employer will move your application forward. The checker reads English-language U.S. résumés, does not do OCR, and is not any employer’s system.
Choose a PDF or DOCX in the free ATS résumé checker to see the text a parser takes from it, which fields it finds and what to fix. Your file is never uploaded.
Check your résumé in your browserFrequently asked questions
What is an ATS-friendly résumé?
It is a résumé whose text a parser can pull out completely and in the right order: a text-based file, plain section headings, contact details in the body, and no columns, tables or text boxes holding key details.1 Image-only pages, unsupported or protected files and unrecognized characters are the problems vendors document.63
What résumé format works best with an ATS?
There is no single documented best format, but Roche says ATSs are programmed to prefer chronological and combination formats, listed most recent first, and can be confused by a functional layout.1 Keep it to a single column with conventional headings and follow the application’s file type.
Is a PDF or a Word file better for an ATS?
Use whatever the application asks for. Both are on the Greenhouse, Workable and Recruiterflow lists,256 and Roche says .docx is the most accurately parsed by its ATSs while PDFs keep your format intact best.1 A PDF must contain real text: an image-only PDF has nothing for a parser to read.6
Can an ATS read a two-column résumé or a table?
Sometimes, but Roche warns that some systems read columns straight across the page and tells candidates to avoid tables and text boxes.1 A single column for your main content avoids the question. You can test a file by pasting its text into a plain-text editor and checking the order.
Which fonts are ATS-friendly?
Roche suggests universal fonts such as Arial, Helvetica, Times New Roman, Garamond, Georgia or Cambria, and advises against fonts you must download.1 We found no vendor documentation that lists safe fonts, so this is employer advice. Unrecognized characters, such as icon-font symbols, are the better-documented risk.3
Should I put my contact details in the header?
Put them in the body of the first page. Roche says information in the header and footer sometimes gets dropped by the ATS completely.1
What does an ATS résumé scanner do, and should I trust the score?
“ATS résumé scanner” is a name tools give themselves, not a standard. A tool using it runs your file through its own reader, so any score it shows is that tool’s own number, not an employer’s. Some systems do show recruiters a match score against a single job, and 36% of the 25 recruiters in a small vendor-run study said they use such a score only as a guide.8 LAYIQ’s free ATS résumé checker shows how a straightforward parser reads your file and gives no score.
Does an ATS reject résumés automatically?
It can, but the documented cases come from rules the employer sets, such as Greenhouse’s Auto-Reject on application questions about license or location.4 In a small vendor-run study, 23 of 25 recruiters said their systems do not auto-reject for formatting, content or design.8 The 75% figure has no study or method behind it that we could find.
How do I check whether my résumé parsed correctly?
Paste its text into a plain-text editor and check the order, then run the file through LAYIQ’s free ATS résumé checker, which runs in your browser and never uploads it. When an application form fills in from your résumé, review each field before you submit.1
Sources
- Roche Careers (employer). Resume Parsing FAQ (opens in a new tab). Accessed October 17, 2026.
- Greenhouse Support (vendor). Supported formats for resumes, cover letters and other candidate uploads (opens in a new tab). Accessed October 17, 2026.
- Greenhouse Support (vendor). Why didn't the candidate's resume import correctly? (opens in a new tab). Accessed October 17, 2026.
- Greenhouse Support (vendor). Application rules overview (opens in a new tab). Accessed October 17, 2026.
- Workable Help Center (vendor). What types of files can be uploaded on the application form? (opens in a new tab). Accessed October 17, 2026.
- Recruiterflow Help Center (vendor). My resumes are not being parsed? (opens in a new tab). Accessed October 17, 2026.
- Textkernel (vendor). OCR for Resume Parsing (opens in a new tab). Accessed October 17, 2026.
- Enhancv (vendor-run study of 25 recruiters). Does the ATS Reject Your Resume? 25 Recruiters Explain What Really Happens (opens in a new tab). Published November 3, 2025. Accessed October 17, 2026.