How to make an ATS-friendly CV

An applicant tracking system (ATS) is software that companies use to collect and manage job applications. Popular ones include Workday, Taleo, SuccessFactors, Greenhouse, Lever and Zoho Recruit, and large Gulf employers and Pakistani banks and telecoms use them too.

When you upload your CV, the ATS does three things:

1. Parses it: extracts your name, contact details, job titles, employers, dates, education and skills into database fields.
2. Stores it so recruiters can search all applicants, for example "SAP FICO" with "Dubai".
3. Ranks or filters it in some systems, comparing your profile to the job's requirements or knockout questions.

The popular idea that "75% of CVs are rejected by robots" is exaggerated. Most rejections happen because a recruiter searched or skimmed and did not find what they needed. But both problems have the same fix: a CV the software can read cleanly and that clearly contains the right words.

Parsers read text in order, top to bottom. Anything that disturbs that order risks garbling your data.

• Multi-column layouts where the parser reads across columns, mixing your skills into your job descriptions.
• Tables and text boxes, which some parsers skip completely.
• Headers and footers holding contact details; some systems ignore them, so your phone number vanishes.
• Images of text: a CV designed in Canva and exported as an image, or a scanned page. Software sees nothing.
• Icons instead of words: a phone icon next to a number is fine, but an icon alone in place of "Email" is not.
• Skill bars and star ratings that mean nothing to a parser and little to a human.
• Unusual headings like "Where I've been" instead of "Work experience".
• Fancy fonts or characters that do not map to normal text.

Keep it boring underneath, even if the design is polished:

• One main column; a narrow sidebar only if the template outputs text in reading order.
• Standard headings: Summary, Work experience, Education, Skills, Certifications, Languages.
• Contact details in the body of the page, not the header.
• Each job as: Job title, Employer, City, Month Year – Month Year, then bullets.
• A text-based PDF exported from a word processor or CV builder, or a .docx file if the employer asks for Word.

A quick test: open your PDF, select all text and paste it into a plain text editor. If the result reads in a sensible order with nothing missing, most ATS will read it too.

Recruiters search the ATS using words from the job description. If the ad asks for "accounts payable" and your CV only says "vendor payments", a search may miss you.

Find the keywords

Read the job ad and highlight hard skills, tools, certifications, job titles and industry terms. Words that appear more than once or in the requirements list matter most. For a bank officer role you might find "KYC", "AML", "branch banking", "cross-selling" and "T24".

Use them naturally

Place each important keyword where it is true: in your summary, in the skills list, and inside the bullet that proves it. "Completed KYC and AML checks for 60+ new accounts a month" is better than a keyword list alone because it reads well to a person and matches the search.

Use both forms

Write out acronyms once with the short form: "Know Your Customer (KYC)". Match the job title where honest: if you were a "Customer Care Executive" and the ad says "Customer Service Representative", your summary can say "customer service representative with 4 years…".

Do not stuff

Hiding keywords in white text, or pasting the job description into your CV, is easy for recruiters to spot and can get you blacklisted. Modern systems also show the parsed text, so tricks are visible.

See how keywords are used in the data analyst and bank officer examples.

• Give every job a start and end month and year. Missing dates make your experience impossible to calculate.
• Keep job titles recognisable. Internal titles like "Associate II, Ops" are fine if you add the common title in brackets.
• Spell out your location (Lahore, Pakistan or Dubai, UAE). Many recruiters filter by location.
• Answer knockout questions honestly; they often filter before anyone reads your CV.
• Name the file sensibly: "Firstname-Lastname-CV.pdf".

• Single-column or reading-order layout, no text in images.
• Contact details in the page body, with email and phone.
• Standard section headings.
• Month and year for every job and qualification.
• Five to ten keywords from the job ad, each used where it is true.
• Bullets that start with verbs and include results.
• No spelling mistakes in skills, tools or company names.
• Text-based PDF or .docx.

You can run all of these checks automatically with our free ATS resume checker. It runs on your device, so your CV is not uploaded anywhere.