How to write an ATS‑friendly resume in 2025

You send out resume after resume and hear nothing back.

In many cases, it's not that you're not good enough — it's that your resume never reached a human. It got filtered out by an applicant tracking system (ATS) long before a recruiter had the chance to see it.

In this guide, you'll learn:

  • what ATS actually is (without the jargon)
  • the main reasons ATS rejects resumes
  • concrete rules for writing an ATS‑friendly resume in 2025
  • how to use job description keywords without keyword stuffing
  • a simple checklist to check your resume

What an ATS is and why it rejects good candidates

How applicant tracking systems work (simple explanation)

Most medium and large companies use some kind of applicant tracking system (ATS) to manage incoming applications.

When you apply:

  1. The ATS receives your resume (PDF / DOCX / form input).
  2. It parses the file, trying to extract:
    • your name and contact details
    • job titles and dates
    • skills and tools
    • education
  3. It compares your resume to the job description using rules and/or scoring logic:
    • required vs. preferred skills
    • seniority, keywords, location, etc.
  4. The system ranks candidates and shows recruiters only the ones who match best.

This means:

Before you impress a hiring manager, you have to be understandable to a robot.

If the ATS can't read or properly interpret your resume, your application can be silently dropped.

Common myths about ATS

There’s a lot of confusion around ATS. Let’s clear a few myths:

Myth 1: “ATS automatically rejects all creative resumes.”
Not exactly. The problem is not that creativity is forbidden, but that complex layouts often break parsing. Multi‑column designs, tables, icons, and text baked into images can confuse the system and lead to missing information.

Myth 2: “No one reads resumes anymore — it’s all AI.”
Recruiters and hiring managers still read resumes. ATS just helps them prioritize which ones to look at first. Your goal is to get into that shortlist, not bypass humans.

Myth 3: “If I stuff my resume with keywords, I’ll always pass ATS.”
Keyword stuffing can backfire. Some systems penalize unnatural patterns, and even if you pass ATS, a human will see a messy, spammy resume.

Why your resume might be rejected before anyone sees it

Some of the most common ATS killers:

  • Missing keywords from the job description (skills, tools, responsibilities)
  • Overly complex formatting:
    • heavy use of tables and columns
    • graphics and icons instead of text
    • text inside images
  • Weird fonts or non‑standard characters that don't parse
  • Wrong file type, e.g. images/screenshots instead of text‑based PDFs or DOCX
  • Non‑standard section titles:
    • “What I’ve Done” instead of “Work Experience”
    • “My Journey” instead of “Experience”

Instead of guessing what might be wrong, you can:

Upload your resume and paste the job description into our free resume ATS checker and see what the system sees — missing keywords, parsing issues, and your match score.

Key rules for an ATS‑friendly resume in 2025

You don’t need to overthink this. An ATS‑friendly resume is:

  • clean
  • structured
  • relevant to the job

Let’s turn that into specific rules.

Use simple, ATS‑safe formatting

Stick to a single‑column layout. Avoid “fancy” resume templates that look great as PDFs but are hard to parse.

Do:

  • one main column from top to bottom
  • clear separation between sections
  • bullet points for responsibilities and achievements

Avoid:

  • two or three columns
  • complex tables used for layout
  • icons, graphs, or timelines as the primary way of showing information
  • text inside images

Think of it this way:

If you copied and pasted your resume into a plain text editor, would it still be readable and structured? If yes, it’s likely ATS‑friendly.

Choose clean, readable fonts

Keep it boring here — that’s a good thing.

Safe fonts:

  • Arial
  • Calibri
  • Helvetica
  • Verdana

Avoid:

  • script fonts
  • decorative / novelty fonts
  • fonts that don’t render well on different systems

Font size: usually 10–12 pt for body text and 14–16 pt for section headings works well.

Use the right file type

When in doubt, follow the instructions in the job posting. If it says “upload PDF,” upload a text‑based PDF, not a screenshot.

Good choices:

  • .pdf
  • .docx

Risky choices:

  • image files (JPG, PNG) of your resume
  • scanned PDFs (basically images embedded in a PDF)
  • older formats like .doc in some systems

Use standard section names

ATS and recruiters both benefit when your section names are predictable. They help the parser know where to look for which information.

Use:

  • “Summary” or “Professional summary”
  • “Work experience” or “Experience”
  • “Education”
  • “Skills”
  • “Projects” (if relevant)

Avoid overly creative headings that obscure meaning, like:

  • “What I’ve done so far”
  • “Things I’m great at”
  • “My story”

You can use this free resume template from cvprofiler.

ATS‑friendly resume template example

ATS‑friendly resume template example

How to use keywords from the job description (without keyword stuffing)

The single most important ATS factor is relevance — how well your resume content matches the job description.

Step 1: find the right keywords in the job posting

Open the job posting and look for:

Job title
e.g. “Senior product manager,” “Frontend engineer,” “Marketing specialist.”

Responsibilities
Look for recurring verbs and nouns:

  • “manage stakeholders”
  • “build dashboards”
  • “optimize campaigns”

Requirements / skills
Tools, technologies, specific competencies:

  • “React, TypeScript, Node.js”
  • “SQL, Looker, Tableau”
  • “Facebook Ads, Google Ads, SEO”

Make a quick list of:

  • must‑have skills/tools
  • nice‑to‑have skills
  • soft skills mentioned multiple times (e.g. “communication,” “ownership,” “leadership”)

Step 2: place keywords strategically

You don’t need to (and shouldn’t) copy every word. You do need to show that you clearly match the requirements.

Good places for keywords:

Headline / title at the top of your resume
If the role is “Product manager,” don’t call yourself “Product vision owner.”

Work experience bullets
Integrate tools and skills into the description of what you did.

Skills section
Group skills logically (e.g. “Languages,” “Frameworks,” “Tools”).

Projects
Mention relevant technologies and outcomes.

Step 3: good vs. bad keyword usage (examples)

Bad (keyword stuffing):

Skills: Python, Python, Data analysis, Data analysis, Machine learning, Machine learning, SQL, SQL, SQL.

Better:

Skills: Python, SQL, Machine learning (classification, regression), Data visualization (Tableau, Power BI).

Bad (generic bullet):

Worked on data projects using various tools.

Better (keyword‑rich but natural):

Built customer churn prediction models using Python and SQL, improving retention by 8% over six months.

The improved version:

  • includes tools from typical job descriptions (Python, SQL)
  • mentions a clear business outcome
  • sounds natural to a human reader

Free ATS resume checklist

Use this quick checklist before you send your next application:

  • one‑column layout (no complex tables or multi‑column tricks)
  • standard section names like “Work experience,” “Education,” “Skills”
  • clean, readable font (Arial, Calibri, Helvetica, etc.)
  • file format is PDF or DOCX, not an image or scan
  • job title on your resume matches (or is close to) the job ad
  • key skills from the job description appear in:
    • your experience bullets
    • your skills section
  • each job has 3–6 clear bullet points (not long paragraphs)
  • bullet points describe impact with numbers where possible
  • no keyword stuffing — everything still reads naturally

If you’re unsure how your resume looks to an ATS, don’t guess:

Run it through an ATS checker and see your score and missing keywords.

Use AI resume software to save time

You can do all of this manually: read the job ad, pick out keywords, rewrite your bullets, and hope the formatting is okay.

Or you can let AI do most of the heavy lifting for you.

How our free ATS profiler works

Here’s the typical flow:

  1. Paste the job description from the site where you found the role.
  2. Upload or paste your resume (PDF).
  3. Our AI:
    • analyzes the job description to find core skills and keywords
    • parses your resume like an ATS would
    • compares the two and gives you a match score
    • shows you missing or weak keywords
    • points out possible formatting or section issues

This gives you a clear, data‑driven view of how well your resume matches a specific role.

From checker to full AI resume builder

Once you see what’s missing, you can:

  • automatically rewrite or improve your bullet points
  • add relevant skills in a natural way
  • switch to a modern, ATS‑friendly template without losing content

That’s exactly what our AI resume builder is designed to do:

  • tailor your resume to each job description in seconds
  • keep the layout ATS‑safe
  • help you present your achievements clearly

Try the free ATS profiler now, see your score, and turn your current resume into an ATS‑friendly version in a few clicks.

Final thoughts

ATS isn’t your enemy — it’s a filter that rewards clarity and relevance.

If you:

  • use a simple layout
  • write clearly about your impact
  • align your resume with the job description
  • check it with an ATS‑style tool

…you give yourself a much better chance of getting to the human review stage.

Once your resume passes the bot, your skills and experience can actually speak for themselves.

If you don’t want to rebuild everything from scratch, start small:

  • take your current resume
  • paste the job description
  • let AI analyze it
  • apply the most important fixes first
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