ATS-friendly resume format: what to keep and what to cut

Send a text-based PDF unless the job post asks for Word. A PDF keeps your layout identical on every screen, and modern ATS software reads text PDFs well. The key word is text-based: if you can’t highlight individual words in the file, neither can the software.

Name the file clearly, for example “Firstname-Lastname-Resume.pdf”. Recruiters download dozens of files called “resume.pdf”.

A single column is the safest layout. Two columns can work when the side column holds short items such as skills or languages, because even if the order is mixed up, nothing important is lost. Avoid putting job history in a narrow side column.

• Avoid tables and text boxes for main content.
• Don’t put your name or contact details only in the page header or footer.
• Skip skill bars, star ratings and charts — they are images with no readable text, and “4 out of 5 in Python” tells a recruiter very little.
• Use icons only next to text (an email icon beside your email address), never instead of it.

Use one common, readable font — Arial, Calibri, Helvetica, Lato, Roboto or similar — at 10 to 12 points for body text. Use bold for job titles and section headings, and avoid long passages in italics or all capitals.

White space is not wasted space. A little room between sections lets a recruiter scan the page quickly, and that first scan decides whether they read the rest.

For most people this order works:

• Name, target job title and contact details (email, phone, city, LinkedIn or portfolio).
• Summary — two to four lines on who you are and what you are good at.
• Work experience, most recent first, with title, employer, location and dates.
• Projects, if they show skills your jobs don’t.
• Education.
• Skills, grouped and written the way employers write them.

Remove anything that doesn’t help a recruiter decide to interview you: an “Objective” that only says you want a job, “References available on request”, hobbies that say nothing about the role, and very old or unrelated jobs that push your best work onto page two.

If your country or industry expects personal details such as date of birth or a photo, keep them short and in the header. For applications to the US, UK, Canada or Australia, leave out photos and age.